CHAPTER I. 
GEOLOGY A HISTORY OF THE WORLD BEFORE 
HUMAN HISTORY BEGAN. 
AUSTRALIA HAS A HISTORY FAR MORE ANCIENT THAN 
ANY WRITTEN BY MEN — TO READ THIS HISTORY IS ONE 
OF THE OBJECTS OF GEOLOGY — RECORDS PRESERVED IN 
THE GREAT STONE-BOOK OF NATURE. 
Not long ago some strange-looking impressions were 
discovered on a block of shale at St. Peters, near 
Sydney. The block was dug from a band seventy 
feet below the surface. The impressions were 
evidently made by a living animal walking over the 
partially-hardened shale, when that shale band was 
the surface of the land. After the creature left its 
foot-print several hundred feet of newer shales were 
deposited. There is convincing evidence to show that 
these foot prints were made when the Blue Mountains 
were still beneath the waters, and before the Alps or 
the Himalayas were lifted to their proud eminence. 
But by what manner of creature were these foot prints 
left ? The impressions did not look as if they could 
have been made by any animal that living man had 
ever set eyes upon. 
Some time before, the remains of a wonderful 
“ extinct monster” were unearthed in the same quarry. 
B 
