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diff --git a/75564-h/75564-h.htm b/75564-h/75564-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2de4c60 --- /dev/null +++ b/75564-h/75564-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5665 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The Puzzle of Life; and How It Has Been Put Together. | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} + +hr.r5 {width: 5%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 47.5%; margin-right: 47.5%;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +ul.index { list-style-type: none; } +li.ifrst { + margin-top: 1em; + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 1em; +} +li.indx { + margin-top: .5em; + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 1em; +} +li.isub1 { + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 2em; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } + +.tdl {text-align: left; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -1.5em;} +.tdr {text-align: right; padding-right: .5em;} +.tdc {text-align: center;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; + color: #A9A9A9; +} /* page numbers */ + +.bb {border-bottom: 2px solid;} + +.bl {border-left: 2px solid;} + +.bt {border-top: 2px solid;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} +img.w100 {width: 100%;} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: 1px dashed;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +.poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center; font-size: 85%;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +.fs60 {font-size: 60%} +.fs70 {font-size: 70%} +.fs80 {font-size: 80%} +.fs90 {font-size: 90%} +.fs120 {font-size: 120%} +.fs150 {font-size: 150%} + +.no-indent {text-indent: 0em;} +.bold {font-weight: bold;} +.wsp {word-spacing: 0.3em;} +.lh {line-height: 1.5em;} + +h2 {font-size: 130%; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.6em; word-spacing: .3em;} +h3 {font-size: 110%; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.6em; word-spacing: .3em;} + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} +.poetry .indent20 {text-indent: 7em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp100 {width: 100%;} +.illowp85 {width: 85%;} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75564 ***</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center no-indent wsp fs150"><span class="fs70">THE</span><br> + +PUZZLE OF LIFE.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center no-indent fs80 wsp"> +LONDON: PRINTED BY<br> +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE<br> +AND PARLIAMENT STREET<br> +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_f004" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_f004.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"> + +<p class="right fs80"> +<em>Frontispiece</em></p> + +<p class="center no-indent fs120 wsp"><em>The Mammoth.</em></p></figcaption> +</figure> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1> +THE PUZZLE OF LIFE;<br> + +<span class="fs60">AND</span><br> + +<span class="fs70">HOW IT HAS BEEN PUT TOGETHER.</span></h1> +<br> + +<p class="center no-indent wsp">A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FORMATION OF THE EARTH,<br> +WITH ITS VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE,<br> +FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES,<br> +<br> +<span class="fs70">INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF</span><br> +<br> +<em>PRE-HISTORIC MAN, his WEAPONS, TOOLS and WORKS</em>.<br> +<br> +<br> +<span class="fs70">BY</span><br> +<br> +<span class="fs120">ARTHUR NICOLS, F.R.G.S.</span><br> +<br> +<br> +<em>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS by FREDERICK WADDY.</em><br> +<br> +<br> +<span class="bold fs90">SECOND EDITION.</span><br> +<br> +<br> +LONDON:<br> +<span class="fs120">LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.</span><br> +1877.<br> +<br> +<span class="fs70"><em>All rights reserved.</em></span></p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center no-indent wsp"> +TO<br> +<br> +MY YOUNG FRIENDS<br> +<br> +<span class="fs120">BEATRIX, GUY, SYLVIA, MAY, <span class="allsmcap">AND</span> GERALD.</span><br> +<br> +THE CHILDREN OF<br> +<br> +<span class="fs120">GEORGE DU MAURIER.</span><br> +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE<br> + +<span class="fs70">TO</span><br> + +<span class="fs90">THE SECOND EDITION.</span></h2> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 15%"> +<img src="images/f011.jpg" alt=""> +</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> favourable reception accorded to the +first edition has induced me to give the present +a more definite educational character. +Foot-notes are appended, referring to the +position in the British Museum of all the +principal antiquities, fossils, and implements +mentioned in the text; so that the specimens +can easily be found by any young student +who wishes, with the book in his hand, to +make himself familiar with these records of +past time. This will probably facilitate the +search for and recognition of specimens by +the reader.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</span></p> + +<p>The additions to the text consist chiefly +of a more extended account of the deposition +of chalk and other deep-sea formations, +founded on the results of the “Challenger” +and “Tuscarora” expeditions, and a sketch of +the earthworks of the Ohio mound-builders +and the stone monuments of Easter Island. +Examples of pre-historic art and lake-dwellings +have been added to the illustrations.</p> + +<p class="right"> +A. N.<br> +</p> + +<p class="fs80"><span class="smcap">Hampstead</span>: <em>March 1877</em>.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE2">PREFACE<br> + +<span class="fs70">TO</span><br> + +<span class="fs90">THE FIRST EDITION.</span></h2> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 15%"> +<img src="images/f011.jpg" alt=""> +</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Having</span> found that children could be interested +in the history of life upon the Earth, and +that it appealed forcibly to their understanding, +I considered that a little book upon the +subject might give them the taste for more +extended study in after years. The difficulty +of treating the, to them, novel conclusions of +geology, often founded on abstract reasoning, +in language simple in form yet stating +clearly the great principles upon which this +reasoning rests, will probably be apparent on +every page. Breadth, rather than minuteness, +has been aimed at, in the belief that a general<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</span> +view, not overcrowded with details, is likely +to be the most impressive. Thus, in the +geological part the leading features of the succession +of strata have been preserved, but +no details of systematic classification entered +into. Similarly, Primeval Man is considered +mainly with reference to gradual progress +from a rude to a more civilized condition. +To have been more explicit, where there is +still much difference of opinion, would have +obscured the main facts of the evidence for +man’s great antiquity.</p> + +<p>The illustrations are typical examples of +the three arbitrary but convenient divisions of +the history of life—the vegetable, the animal, +and the human—such as will be most readily +met with in museums. Slight as this sketch +is, the liking for it shown by some intelligent +children, who saw it in manuscript, encouraged +me to believe that there are many +others to whom it might prove interesting.</p> + +<p>Some acquaintance with the leading facts +in science is daily becoming more necessary<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</span> +to those who aspire to liberal culture, and instruction +in them is a recognised feature in +the curriculum of some public and leading +private schools. Thus, it is hoped that the +present volume may to some extent serve as a +text-book without the severity of such a form. +The best English and foreign authorities have +been consulted, and other trustworthy sources—as +papers read before scientific societies—drawn +upon, bringing the information down to +the latest time. Though these pages are designed +for young persons, other readers, perhaps, +who are not familiar with the subject, +may find some interest in them if they are +not deterred by the necessarily simple style.</p> + +<p>My thanks are due to Mr. <span class="smcap">H. B. Woodward</span>, +of the Geological Survey of England +and Wales, for some valuable suggestions +made during the progress of the work.</p> + +<p class="right"> +A. N.<br> +</p> + +<p class="fs80"><span class="smcap">Hampstead</span>: <em>November 1876</em>.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</h2> +</div> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 15%"> +<img src="images/f011.jpg" alt=""> +</div> +<br> + +<table class="autotable lh" style="width: 60%"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdr fs70">PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Framework of the Puzzle</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Geological Part</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Vegetable Part</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Animal Part</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Human Part</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Conclusion</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Index</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="ILLUSTRATIONS">ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 15%"> +<img src="images/f011.jpg" alt=""> +</div> +<br> + +<table class="autotable lh"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Mammoth</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_f004"><em>Frontispiece</em></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Upheaval: Subsidence: Denudation</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_p051-1">51</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Different Kinds of Plants of the Coal Forests</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_p065-1">65</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Trilobite</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_p079">79</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Footprints of Labyrinthodon: Footprints of Birds, (2) with marks of Rain-drops</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_p083">83</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Fish-Reptiles</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_p087-1">87</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Bird-Reptiles</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_p093-1">93</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Fossils of the Chalk</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_p097">97</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Gigantic Irish Stag</span> (<span class="smcap">Cervus Megaceros</span>)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_p108">108</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">IX.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Megatherium</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_p112">112</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">X.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">1. Flint Arrow-head; 2. Stone Axe in Handle; 3. Flint Knife; 4. Bone Harpoon; 5. Bone Needles; 6. Sceptre made of Horn; 7. Marrow Spoon</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_p129">129</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XI.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Examples of Pre-historic Drawings</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_p135-1">135</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XII.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Lake-dwellings</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_p148">148</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XIII.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Guadaloupe Human Fossil</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_p159">159</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> + +<p class="center no-indent fs80">THE</p> +</div> + +<p class="center no-indent fs150 wsp">PUZZLE OF LIFE.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 15%"> +<img src="images/f011.jpg" alt=""> +</div> +<br> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_FRAMEWORK_OF_THE_PUZZLE"><em>THE FRAMEWORK OF THE PUZZLE.</em></h2> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">You</span> must often have looked with wondering +eyes at this World of ours, and +asked yourselves questions about it. How +did it come here? What is it made of? +How old is it? All of them questions not +to be answered without a great deal of +thought and study, and even then not so perfectly +as we should like. It is easy to say “It +is here,” and “It is made of earth,” and “It +surely must be old,” but that will not satisfy +us. We want to know something more certain +than this, if possible. We can see that +a clock goes with wheels, but we are not very +intelligent people if we do not want to find<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span> +out what makes the clock go. One way of +finding out is to pull things to pieces, but we +cannot exactly do this with the World. We +must think about it, and put together all the +knowledge we can gain from the outside and +inside, and from the other Worlds around us, +which we can see, and when we have done +this we may get something like answers to +our questions.</p> + +<p>How did it come here? But this is not +quite the right way of asking the question, +because the World is never for two moments +together in the same place. It is travelling +in a great circle round the Sun at the rate of +more than sixty thousand miles an hour, and +has been ever since it was formed. That +is a wonderful arrangement by which all +Worlds travel round some other World larger +than themselves, in greater or less circles, +and we do not know why it is, though we +are certain that it is so. The Moon travels +round us once in about every month, and we +and the Moon together round the Sun once in +every year.</p> + +<p>Then again, other planets, with their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span> +moons, such as Jupiter, for instance, travel +round the Sun in much larger circles than our +World, and take many years to do the journey, +while Venus, which is nearer the Sun than we +are, travels in a much smaller circle, and +takes less time. We do not perceive that +we are moving so fast because everything we +see is moving equally fast with us; but there +is no doubt that we are spinning along at +sixty thousand miles an hour.</p> + +<p>If we ask an astronomer how our World +came into existence, he will tell us that it is +probably a mass separated from the Sun, that +it was once red-hot, and that it slowly cooled +down until animals and plants could live upon +it. He will tell us besides, that he can see +mountains and valleys in our Moon, and land +and sea, snow and clouds, on the planet Mars, +with his great telescopes. When he thinks +about the planets and our own World, then +he believes them to be pieces of some much +larger World—perhaps the Sun—which now +travel round the Sun and receive their light +and heat from it. The World is made of what +we call “earth,” and it is of this I mean to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> +tell you now—how it was formed, what +changes have taken place in it, what plants +and animals have lived upon it, and what +reasons there are for thinking that it is an +exceedingly old place, with a long and interesting +story to tell.</p> + +<p>Little was known thirty or forty years ago +by the most learned men about the age of our +World, and it was thought that the human +race had not lived here very long. It was +indeed known that many large animals, whose +huge bones have been found, must have +lived before man came to inhabit the Earth, +and that even far smaller creatures—such as +fishes, and crabs, and insects, and shell-fish—most +probably lived for many generations, +and died and left their bones and shells in +the soil long before the first man or the +first tribes of men came to share the World +with them. I hope to be able to tell you something +of the strange and beautiful history of +all these animals, and of man himself, and +to show you what reasons there are now for +thinking that the human race has inhabited +this Earth for a very long time indeed, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span> +how all this knowledge has been gained and +put together piece by piece. It is something +like the different parts of a puzzle-map, +which might be scattered all over the house, +and found at one time or another in different +places, and at last made up altogether. +Some parts of the puzzle have not been +found yet certainly; but so many have been +collected, and they fit into one another so +well, that we can begin to see its real shape +and size. It will perhaps be a very long time +before some of the missing pieces are found; +but in the meantime we can go on without +them, and put the framework together, and no +doubt in time we shall see what our puzzle, +the history of life on the Earth, was like.</p> + +<p>Before telling you what its parts are, I +ought to say where many of them have been +found, and how they are still being looked +for. They are found <em>upon</em> the ground, <em>under</em> +it, in caves, in rivers, and in the sea. Since +railways have been in use a great many tunnels +have been made, as well as very deep +cuttings through hills, and some of these are +several miles long. In this way we have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> +come to know something of the Earth below +the surface. Some of these tunnels are bored +right through high hills and even mountains, +and the cuttings are deep enough to hide +high houses if they were put into them. +While digging these the workmen have +found many of the parts of our puzzle, which +are the bones of animals, and fishes, and +shells, and even smaller things—such as +insects. These could not possibly have +been put there by anyone, because they were +many, many yards below the surface, and, +until they were dug up, nobody imagined +that they could be there. Many other things +besides have been dug out of these places, +but nearer the surface, such as weapons and +tools made of flint, and stone, and bone, and +metal, and pieces of rough crockery, and +various ornaments, all of which must at +some time or other have been made and +used by people very like ourselves. In +digging canals, too, the same kinds of things +have been found, and some caves are almost +filled up with them. We have other means, +too, of knowing what is under the surface of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> +the ground we walk upon. Many of the +coal-mines are so deep that the Tower of +London, or St. Paul’s Cathedral, or York +Minster, or even the Pyramids of Egypt +could be buried in them! In digging these +the workmen have had to go through a +great quantity of earth, sometimes chalk, +sand, or gravel, or clay or limestone, layer +upon layer, placed, like a pile of books of +different kinds and different thicknesses, one +upon the other, until they have come to +the coal. In these different layers of earth +parts of the puzzle have been found, and we +shall see by-and-by what parts have been +found in the coal itself. Then again, when +deep mines are made to get the metals, iron +and gold and silver, these layers of earth +have to be dug through; and when the +beautiful kinds of stone, like marble and limestone, +are wanted, they must be dug out of +the sides of the hills, and in doing this still +more pieces of the puzzle come to hand. +But there are other places where Nature +herself seems to have shown us some of +them without the trouble of searching for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> +them. In many parts of the World, by the +sea, and on the banks of rivers, there are +cliffs hundreds of feet high, like the chalk +cliffs at Dover and Ramsgate, and the sandy +cliffs at Folkestone and on the south coast +of Devonshire. These cliffs have been cut +into by the sea very gradually, and a kind +of wall has been left, and from the sides of +the cliffs great numbers of the pieces of the +puzzle, bones, shells, &c., have been collected +and taken away to museums. But +the little we can do with our mines and railway +tunnels is nothing in comparison with +the work of Nature. In some of the great +mountain chains—the Andes, the Himalayas, +and the Alps, for instance—parts of the sides +of mountains have fallen down, and rents +many miles long have been left, showing +what had been buried there in the different +kinds of soil; and where rivers have cut +deep, narrow channels through the earth, +like the Cañons of Colorado, these natural +miners have turned out more of the parts of +“the puzzle of life” than we can with all our +labour.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p> + +<p>It will not be easy at first to understand +all the wonders I have to show you, but, when +we get further on, you will see them one +by one, and there will be very little difficulty. +You know now where these things +are to be found: principally in the ground +you walk upon, without knowing all there is +beneath you. The creatures here are much +more wonderful than any of the monsters of +fairy tale or fable, because the works of God +are greater than the imagination of men who +have invented the stories of flying dragons +and griffins, and trees which grew up into the +skies; but I cannot help thinking that this +imagination shows what men thought <em>might</em> +once have been, and we shall see that “truth +is stranger than fiction.” Creatures really did +live on this Earth of such strange shapes and +great size that the imaginations of those +who wrote the fairy tales did not exaggerate +much; and, though we know that no flying +serpents or immense birds like the Roc are +living now, and that there is no beanstalk +which grows up into the sky while we are +asleep, we shall see that there were lizards as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> +large as whales, and birds taller than elephants, +and great sloths stronger than the +rhinoceros or hippopotamus, and ferns as +high as oak trees, and mosses as large as +gooseberry bushes; and that perhaps these +animals and plants grew much faster than +they do now, and that their dead bodies form +a very large part of the earth of our World. +This is not imagination, and when you go to +a museum you can see all these wonders for +yourselves, just as they were taken out of +the earth; but of course the bones only of +the animals are there. The flesh has long +since gone away, and some of the stalks and +fronds (leaves) only of the ferns remain to +show us how large they must have been +when they were alive and growing.</p> + +<p>It will be necessary to use a few scientific +names, most of which are borrowed from the +Greek and Latin languages, but I will explain +the meaning of them all, so that they +will be easily remembered. First of all, +then, the pieces of the puzzle are called <em>fossils</em>, +and the name comes from a Latin word +meaning “dug out;” because they have been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> +dug out of the ground either by man in making +railways and mines, or by Nature in the many +ways in which she works by cutting down +cliffs and scooping out valleys. These fossils +are bones of animals and fishes, the skins, +shells, and wings of insects, and the stalks +and leaves of plants, some of which have +lain so very long in the ground that they have +become as hard and heavy as stone. But +the shape of them always remains, and the +moment you look at them you see that they +once belonged to living creatures.</p> + +<p>I shall give you pictures of some of these +fossils; and no doubt you will be able to find +some like them in the chalk and sands of the +seaside—beautiful shells and bones of fishes. +You may pick these out of the cliffs, and then +go to the pools of salt water left among the +rocks by the ebbing tide, and compare your +fossils with the living shell-fish, and see how +nearly those inhabitants of the ancient oceans +resemble the creatures we find now, sporting +in the water, just as these fossils did when +the sand and chalk cliffs were under the sea. +Of course all the bright colours are gone<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> +from the fossils, for the colour of animals +fades away soon after they die, and the flesh +does not last long; but the hard parts—the +bones and shells—are not easily destroyed, +because they are made of the same material +as rocks. And when we look at the fossil +plants we see the same thing. The colours +of the green stems and leaves have quite +faded, but the delicate shapes of the leaves +and branches, and the grain of the wood, can +still be seen, and you will have no doubt that +they once lived and bore flowers and fruit, and +died, as plants are living and dying every day.</p> + +<p>You have got so far now that you know +what fossils are, and where they may be +found. You know that they are the small +and large pieces of the “puzzle of life”—of all +sorts of different shapes and sizes—and you +know that they are scattered about the Earth, +deep down in coal-mines, on the tops of +mountains, at the bottoms of rivers, in deep +caves, and under the sea. The patience and +industry of clever men have been well spent +in gathering together all they can find, and +arranging them in museums for our instruction,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> +and making a history of them which is +more wonderful than the Arabian Nights, +and more beautiful because it is all <em>true</em>. +And, though you may think it strange that +I promise to show you creatures more marvellous +than those of the fairy tales, I shall +keep that promise faithfully. We shall find +no Genii with wonderful lamps and magic +rings, because they never really lived, though +it gave us much pleasure and amusement to +read about them; but we shall see what God, +the greatest Genius of all, has done by means +of His magicians—the laws of Nature. +These magicians have built up high mountains +and dug out valleys, and sent mighty +rivers sweeping down to the sea, and even +filled up oceans with sand and chalk, and +buried ancient forests deep down under sea +and land. They worked with fire, and air, +and water; not quickly, but with such +strength that nothing could resist them, and +they gradually moulded the Earth into the +beautiful thing it is, so that</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">In contemplation of created things,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By steps we may ascend to God.—<cite>Milton.</cite></div> + </div> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span></p> +<p>But, lovely as the Earth is, we should not +perhaps have thought so much of it if there +had been nothing to discover. We see that +it has been prepared for us an immensely +long time ago; and when we know a little, +we want to search further and find out what +the whole plan of Creation is, so far as we +can. You will be surprised when you know +how many signs of past life there are around +you—many more than you can see with the +eye. The Earth is one great burying-place +of creatures which have passed away. You +are walking over their dead and fossil bodies +at almost every step. They are built into +the walls of our houses, and there are +millions of them in some of the commonest +stones of the pavement. Those round, +smooth pebbles, called flint stones, which we +pick out of the gravel walks, were once partly +such soft tender things as sponges; but time +has hardened them, and they have been +rolled together in seas and rivers by the +always moving water until they have become +quite different to look at from the rough blue +flints they were when they were washed out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> +of the chalk beds. When you are walking +along the sands of some seacoasts, you are +treading on little specks of these small flints +which have been ground down fine in that +great mill, the ocean. The sponges, then, +did some part in the building up of the +Earth. The very chalk you draw with is +composed of the shells of sea-animals. Your +slates and slate pencils were once a fine mud +at the bottom of the sea, since become so +hard that it is used for covering the roofs of +our houses, and in this mud lived myriads +of small shell-fish which have sometimes left +their frail houses in the slate beds to tell us +how they were made. That slate is the +hardened mud of an old sea bottom, there is +no doubt at all.</p> + +<p>There are many other things in common +use which show us the life that was.</p> + +<p>Perhaps you did not know that coals are +<em>compressed plants</em>, and that we are now +burning the vegetation of the past time! +But these will be described in their right +places by-and-by, and you will see how +certain it is that some of the commonest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> +things we use were living creatures and +graceful plants.</p> + +<p>Here is “the framework” of the puzzle, +and I think you will agree with me that we +shall have pleasure in putting it together +with all the queerly-shaped pieces we shall +find in the following chapters. We have +fossil plants to show us what grew upon the +Earth, fossil bones to tell us what animals +lived here, and thousands of different kinds +of fossil shells and fishes to show us that +the seas in the long past time were crowded +with life; and besides, though there are no +written histories of the men whom we shall +read about, they, too, have left many things +which they used in the caves where they lived +and in their graves, to make us feel certain +that they were some of the oldest people that +ever lived. With all these things to help us, it +will be strange if we cannot make out a great +deal of the history of life upon our Earth.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_GEOLOGICAL_PART"><em>THE GEOLOGICAL PART.</em></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">You</span> will have learned from other books +something about the size and shape of our +World: for instance, that it is a great round +body, or rather more like an orange, a little +flatter one way than the other, and about +8,000 miles through, from one side to the +other, and that it turns round once in every +twenty-four hours; but I have only to tell +you now what it is made of. The material +is called rock, earth, or soil; and there are +many kinds of it, such as granite, gravel, +clay, sand, chalk, mud, and so on; and we +shall see that many of these different soils +contain different fossils.</p> + +<p>It is supposed that a very long time +passed while these were being laid one upon +another, and before many plants or animals +lived here, and there are good reasons for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> +thinking that underneath these soils the +Earth is very hot, perhaps in a melting state, +because we know that volcanoes like Vesuvius +and Ætna throw out flame and smoke and +lava, which is melted earth and rock; and +that this lava has run down the sides of the +mountains for miles, in a great stream of +liquid material, and covered up and destroyed +whole villages and towns. You have heard +of earthquakes, when the ground shakes and +cracks, and houses are thrown down, as they +have often been in Spain, Italy, and South +America. This convinces us that the inside +of the earth must be very different from the outside. +Two or three years ago Mount Vesuvius +was boiling up, and the people of Naples feared +that it would throw out some of the terrible +lava and red-hot cinders, and burn up their +vineyards and perhaps injure their city; and +during the last two or three years many +people have been killed by earthquakes in +South America. These things seldom happen +in the North of Europe, and when they +do they are only slightly felt, and people are +not killed, neither are houses thrown down.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> +Still, this shows that there must be some +great force underneath us, and very much +heat. We see nothing of this when we +look upon the green fields, and we should +scarcely think it possible if there were not +histories about these eruptions, as they are +called. But when I tell you that I have felt +the Earth tremble, and seen fire rushing out +from the top of a high mountain whose sides +were covered with snow, you will understand +how real it is—though it may seem so strange.</p> + +<p>People at one time liked to fancy that +powerful spirits lived in volcanoes and made +them their workshops: but we know better +now.</p> + +<p>Well, the interior of the Earth is evidently +very different from the part we live upon; +and it is the outside we have to think about +now, which would be dreadfully cold if the +sun did not shine upon it, though the inside +is so hot.</p> + +<p>I have called this “the Geological Part,” +and the name Geological comes from two +Greek words meaning “a talk about the earth;” +but now you know it in its English dress it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> +will be easy to recollect it. Geology is then the +study of the many kinds of rocks and fossils +which makeup our World, but we must know +something of the way in which they are placed.</p> + +<p>You may have noticed, if you have made +many journeys to different parts of England +or Wales, that the rocks or soils are very +different in various places. Sometimes we +find numerous chalk-pits, as in parts of Kent, +or Sussex; if we go into Devonshire we may +notice the very red colour of the soil and of the +cliffs, especially near Sidmouth, Dawlish, and +Teignmouth; in North Wales we find great +quarries and hills of slate; while around +London we see a great deal of clay used for +making bricks, and called the London clay, +as well as many pits in gravel so useful for +making paths and mending roads, and in Kent +and Sussex chalk cliffs and hills are common.</p> + +<p>Now after studying these various rocks +all over our country, we find that there is a +certain regular order in which they are found; +some have been made a long time before +others, and while most kinds contain some +fossils, those found in the oldest rocks are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> +much less like the living plants and animals +than the fossils we find in the newer rocks.</p> + +<p>But you will want to know how it is that +we can tell that one rock is older than +another, when both appear at the surface of +the earth. It would take a long time to +make sure of this for ourselves, but it will be +enough to say that the various cliffs, quarries, +and railway-cuttings often show one kind of +rock resting upon another, and these always +occur in a certain order. Thus we never find +the Chalk resting on the London Clay, but we +constantly find the London Clay resting on +the Chalk. And this is proved in another +way, by deep well-borings. Underneath +London many wells have been carried down +right through the London Clay, and if only +continued deep enough they always reach +the Chalk. In the same way, the order of +the other rocks has been ascertained in +different parts of the country, by examining +all the pits and quarries, and cliffs and cuttings, +with the help of what knowledge can +be obtained from deep mines and wells.</p> + +<p>You will now begin to wonder why the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> +older rocks should appear at the surface. I +have told you about earthquakes, and you +will find that many dreadful earthquakes +must in former times have ravaged our +country. The reason why the old rocks +come to the surface is because they have +been lifted up sometimes violently, but more +often very slowly. And the newer rocks +which formerly rested on them have very +often been quite washed away, either by the +sea or by rivers and little streams which formerly +acted upon them.</p> + +<p>Suppose then we take six books, some +thick and some thin, and pile them up together +on the table, the lowest being a good +thick one. The lowest we will call granite, +the next slate, the third sandstone, the fourth +coal, the fifth chalk, and the sixth the London +clay. These will represent some of the +principal kinds of earths, and you can fancy +many more with other names coming between +them; but the London clay can never be +below the granite nor the chalk below the +coal, for the great coal beds were formed long +before the chalk and clay. They generally<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span> +come in much the same order as we have +named them, hard rocks like granite at the +bottom, and softer earths, like sandstone, chalk +and clay, a long way above them. But we do +not always find all these earths in one place +even if we dig ever so deeply, though the +granite would always be found at the bottom +if we went deep enough.</p> + +<p>Sometimes the granite and other old rocks +have been pushed through the upper layers +by some great force, and have broken +them and risen above them in magnificent +mountain chains, like those of the Andes in +South, and the Rocky Mountains in North +America, the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland, +the Grampians in Scotland, and the Cornish +mountains in England. We can easily suppose +that the lowest of our books (the granite +book) has been pushed upwards by some +great force from below, and parts of it broken +through the others, and raised high above +them; and this is what has actually been +done with real rocks. And as this kind of +upheaval has taken place at different periods +of the earths history, we find that granites +have come to the surface at different times.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p> + +<p>When the layers are thus broken through +they are often tilted up on end and tumbled +about in confusion. But where there has +been no disturbance like this, they generally +rest evenly upon one another in their proper +order.</p> + +<p>Granite, and rocks of the same kind, are +not in the least like chalk, or clay, or even +sandstone, and when once you have seen any +of these you will not be likely to mistake it +for the others. Granite is excessively hard, +and has a beautiful appearance when polished, +with a number of brilliant white and some +dark specks in it. It is used for paving the +streets of towns, for which purpose it is cut +into oblong blocks, and for the pillars of fine +buildings. Sometimes it is dark brown, +sometimes reddish, but generally a bluish +grey. This rock is composed of a great +quantity of crystals, and for this reason it is +thought it must have been melted at one +time by intense heat in the earth, and afterwards +slowly cooled. Chalk is very different, +and sandstone, though it is also hard, not in +the least like granite.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span></p> + + +<h3>HOW THE ROCKS WERE FORMED.</h3> + +<p>What I have just said is about all that we +know of the formation of the oldest and hardest +granite rocks: but there is something going +on now which confirms the belief that the +materials of which they are made were melted +together by a greater heat than we can make +in our furnaces for melting iron; for I should +tell you that it is easier to melt iron and +copper than granite rocks. Volcanoes often +throw out melted earths which when cooled +appear to be made of much the same materials +as these granites.</p> + + +<h3>SANDSTONE.</h3> + +<p>But we know more of the manner of the +formation of sandstone. This rock is composed +of rounded grains of sand just like that +we find upon the sea shore. If you take a +handful of this sand and squeeze it tightly, +it will keep together a little while. Now +suppose a quantity of this sand was pressed +by a very great weight—the weight of a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> +large hill for instance—after many years the +grains would stick firmly together, and become +a sort of stone. It is in this way the +sandstones must have been formed, and perhaps +heat helped the work, though not so +great a heat as melted the granite. The +sand, after it had been washed upon the sea +shore, became gradually covered with other +earths hundreds of feet thick, and the immense +weight above it pressed it into stone: +but you may imagine how very long a time +it took to do this. Sandstones are used for +building, but they do not last very long; the +frost makes little cracks in them and they +soon crumble away to the grains of sand of +which they were made. Several fossils are +found in some of these sandstones, which +have been formed at many different periods +of the earth’s history.</p> + + +<h3>CHALK.</h3> + +<p>You have seen those high cliffs of chalk +along the south coast of England, perhaps, +and you have wondered what that beautiful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> +white earth was, and how it came there. It +is found in many parts of the world, and +the south and south-east of England are to a +great extent composed of it. The material +is called by chemists carbonate of lime. It +is almost entirely made up of minute shells +called <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">foraminifera</i>, from two Latin words +which mean that there are many openings or +chambers in their shells, and there are many +beautiful fossils called <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ammonites</i> imbedded in +the chalk. These are shell-fish, two or three +inches, and sometimes a foot across, and their +shape is very like that of the young leaves of +the common fern before it has opened in the +spring.</p> + +<p>Millions of these tiny foraminifera are +living now in parts of the Atlantic and Pacific +oceans, and when they die their shells sink +to the bottom and form a greyish mud, something +like chalk.</p> + +<p>When H.M.S. “Challenger” was sent out +in the year 1873, to find out what was at the +bottom of the deepest seas of the World, +great interest was felt in the expedition, +because we were sure that we should learn<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> +something about the manner in which some +of the rocks were formed.</p> + +<p>We knew that the whole of the beds of +the present seas must be receiving the washings +of the rivers and the bodies of many +fishes and animals, and that the rocks of the +future must be forming down there by these +accumulations. Long lines were let down from +the ship with a dredge at the end, and thus +parts of the bottom of the sea were brought +up and carefully examined. It was found +that the washings, stones, clay, and mud of +the land were carried hundreds of miles out +to sea, and laid upon the bottom. But in the +deeper parts, where the Alps would be almost +covered—there was a fine grey mud composed +almost entirely of the shells of the +little foraminifera, and this, no doubt, is the +chalk of future times, or perhaps limestone +of a harder kind. Deeper, too, than where +this grey mud is found, there is a reddish +mud, exceedingly fine and soft. We cannot +exactly say yet whether this is formed from +the remains of shell-fish; but it is, at all +events, very like the clay of the land, and in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> +some future time will most likely become like +that stiff mud we know so well. So that +even the materials for bricks are being made +now, and perhaps when all those hundreds +of islands scattered about the Pacific Ocean +are joined into one great Continent, this red +mud will be raised and made use of for building +the houses of new peoples and nations.</p> + +<p>When we see this going on now, of course +it is very easy to conclude that the chalk, a +great deal of which is above the sea now, +must have been formed in the same way at the +bottom of an ancient ocean, and afterwards +raised by the same kind of upward force which +made the granite break through other earths.</p> + +<p>If we did not know that the same cause was +at work now, and that the same kinds of shell-fish +were living and laying down new beds of +chalk under the sea, we should not know +how to account for the quantities of chalk in +the world. For innumerable ages these little +creatures have thus been paving the floor of +the ocean with their dead bodies, and you +may suppose that countless millions of them +must have lived and died! In some of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> +chalks the shells of the foraminifera can be +quite distinctly seen with a microscope, and +when these are compared with the shells of +living ones, they are seen to be almost exactly +alike. Next time you pass through one of the +railway cuttings through the chalk in going to +Brighton, or Ramsgate, or Dover, remember +that those high cliffs were built up by these +Liliputian giants under the sea, and you may +think of the chalk as “foraminifera earth”.</p> + + +<h3>COAL.</h3> + +<p>You see this black shining substance +almost every day, and you know it is dug up +from very deep pits where the poor miners are +often killed by explosions of gas escaping +from it. But it is as well to know what +it is and how it comes to be so useful to us. +In the language of chemistry it is called +“carbon”, and a great writer has given it the +poetical name of “compressed sunlight”. But +you will ask how sunlight could possibly +get into a deep mine, and how it could be +compressed there. You will see that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> +explanation is really quite simple by-and-by. +This coal was once above ground, and was +a splendid forest of waving palm-trees, and +ferns, and gigantic mosses, as you will see by +the pictures of the fossils of them.</p> + +<p>Many of the animals and plants of past +times were giants compared to those living +now, of the same species or kind, and many +of the plants of the present time are dwarfs +to those of the same kind which formed the +coal beds. Many generations of trees must +have grown and died, and others must have +sprung up, and so on, until beds of them, +some ten, others twenty, or even thirty feet +thick, were formed. Here, buried in the +coal, are the stems, leaves, bark, roots, fruit, +and seeds of these trees, and we can have no +doubt that almost the whole of the coal is +composed of them. You must not expect to +find the shapes of these in every piece of coal +you may happen to look at, because most of +it has been greatly changed by the great +weight and pressure upon it, and the length +of time: but it is certainly all the same substance—wood +turned into coal. The fossil<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> +plants of the coal are of course entirely +black, but there is no mistake about their +having once been living plants.</p> + +<p>You will ask perhaps how the coal came +to be buried so deep. It is not so always, +being sometimes at the surface. But just as +the granite has been pushed up through the +other rocks, so has the coal in some places +been uplifted and in others has sunk down. +It was often covered up by other earths to +a great depth, after the trees which composed +it had died; but where it is now at +the surface these newer earths have been +afterwards worn away. When the sun shone +upon these coal trees they took its warmth +and light into their stems and leaves, for they +could not live without, and this made them +grow so fast and become so large that it is +not untrue to call coal “compressed sunlight.” +Charcoal is in some respects so like coal that +it would seem to you at once that they were +probably the same material. Charcoal is +simply burnt wood, and when the coal forests +had died down, and when these beds sank +down beneath other layers the pressure and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span> +heat together turned the wood and leaves +into a hard mass like charcoal in colour, but +heavier and more solid, and just enough of the +stems and leaves have been left to enable +us to know with certainty that coal was once +wood.</p> + +<p>We light our fires now and drive our +steam-engines with the heat of the sun which +shone upon the coal forests, and has been +stored up for many thousands of years in the +Earth, to be brought out once more to give +us light and warmth.</p> + + +<h3>CLAY AND MUD.</h3> + +<p>While the ancient forests were growing +up to form the coal beds, and the foraminifera +were slowly building up the chalk, as I +have explained, the Earth was covered with +water in some places which are now dry land, +and the sea now flows over parts of the +World which were once the habitations of +plants and animals. These great changes +have left their marks upon many a mountain +side, and many an old river or sea bed has +become filled up. A map of Europe during<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> +the chalk period would show that the places +where Paris, London, Copenhagen, and Berlin +now are were then under the ocean; but +since then these places have been lifted up, +and mud, clay, and gravel swept over the +chalk in many places by the action of new +rivers and seas. Water, you perceive, has +had a great deal to do with these changes, +and indeed it is one of Nature’s most powerful +tools, for it can wash down rocks and +cliffs and cut its way in rivers for thousands +of miles over the Earth’s surface. It carries +down mud, and clay, and gravel, and this +soil, which has been named alluvium, is one +of the most interesting of all to us, because it +contains the bones of the immense animals we +shall talk about presently, as well as those of +the oldest races of men with their weapons +and ornaments.</p> + +<p>The mud age, and we are in the mud +and gravel age now, belongs to what is called +the Tertiary period, and we shall see that +this age has lasted a very long time already, +so long that though it is still going on, the +most extraordinary animals have lived and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> +died, and not one of them is now left alive. +Still the same washing and cutting of water is +going on which buried their bones in swamps, +and bogs, and river caves, and may perhaps +carry away some of the bones of us who are +living now, to be found ages afterwards by +future generations who will read our history +in these silent witnesses, as we read the history +of the tree ferns and foraminifera in the coal +and the chalk.</p> + +<p>The present age of the World’s history +is the Mud age, or, as we shall call it in future, +the Tertiary period, and I think you will agree +with me when I come to describe it, that it +contains the most interesting of all the pieces +of “the puzzle of life.”</p> + +<p>The earth of the Tertiary period is very +different from a great many of the older +earths. Clay, mud, and gravel are the washings +only of the older rocks, the fine particles +which have been worn off from them +by frost and water and carried down by +rivers and left in large beds, and sometimes +they have a good deal of decayed wood and +weeds mixed with them. Here are found<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> +the bones of the great animals which were so +much larger and stronger than those of the +same kind living now, or any that lived +before them.</p> + + +<h3>UPHEAVAL AND DEPRESSION.</h3> + +<p>These two words are so often used in +books on geology that we shall not be able +to get on without knowing their meaning. We +have seen that the rocks have been formed +in a certain way—some by heat, some by +water, and some by dead forests—and +that they lie over one another in pretty +regular order. But this order has sometimes +been disturbed and the layers have been +tumbled about among one another very +much. In some places the older rocks, such +as granite, slate, and sandstone, have been +pushed up through those above, and in +others the coal has sunk down and been +covered with thick layers of chalk, sand, and +mud. When the force below pushes a layer +up through the others it is called <em>upheaval</em>, +and when a layer sinks down it is called +<em>depression</em>, or <em>subsidence</em>. Both these actions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> +are going on now in different parts of the +Earth. A great part of Sweden, Norway, +and Denmark, of Spitzbergen, Siberia, and +the north of America, is being slowly raised +higher above the sea, as we know by the +height their old sea beaches now are above +the water; while part of the shore of +America opposite to Europe and also the +south of Greenland is slowly sinking down, +as we know by the remains of land animals +and trees which are now covered by the +tide; and at many places on the coast +of India this subsidence is also going on. +Nearer home, too, there is an example +of it in the island of Guernsey. All round +the coast of this island, like that of Jersey, are +found tree trunks and other remains of old +forest land beneath the water. Old histories +refer to this as dry land; and if a map +of it made in 1406 is correct, this land must +have sunk about 150 feet since that time.</p> + +<p>Thus we can see, even at the present +time, the very same changes which have +worked upon our Earth for innumerable +ages. It is now easy to understand how the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> +forests which must have grown above in the +air have, after a long time, sunk down to a +great depth, and been turned into coal, and +covered with the sediment, sand, gravel, +and chalk from the seas which afterwards +flowed over the places where they grew.</p> + +<p>Sometimes the rocks by the sea shore are +cut into terraces or steps by the constant +wear of the water, and when we see these +water marks far above the present level of the +sea we know that the land must have been +lifted up gradually above the sea. There are +many such terraces in Norway. To prove +whether this is so marks have been cut upon +rocks at a measured height above the sea, +and after some years these marks have been +noticed to have been raised much above +the water by the “upheaval” of the earth at +that place.</p> + +<p>Generally this change of level has taken +place gradually, and the greatest work in +moving the layers of earth and displacing +them has been very slow. But in some places +violent and sudden shocks have happened, +tearing up the rocks and piling them up in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> +heaps; and now and then islands have suddenly +appeared in the sea and vanished out +of sight completely in a short time. Islands +have thus come up in the Mediterranean Sea +within the memory of man. In the year 1831 +the island of Julia suddenly appeared near the +coast of Sicily, and since the year 186 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> no +less than three islands have started up in the +bay of the island of Santorin. In this century +islands have appeared among the Azores, the +Indian Archipelago, the Philippines, the +Moluccas, and on the coast of Kamtschatka +and other places. Some of these have appeared +suddenly, others slowly, and they no +doubt have been raised by a great force from +below.</p> + +<p>You will see now how easy it is to account +for the changes of the places of the layers of +rock. The same thing is going on now which +has been going on throughout all time, only +perhaps with more energy formerly than now, +making mountains, islands, and continents, +raising up a large tract of land in one place +and sinking an island or a sea shore in +another.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span></p> + +<p>These changes have been of great use to +us too. Suppose all England had been covered +with coal or slate, we should not have been +able to grow anything! As it is we have +sand and gravel in one county, chalk in +another, slate or granite in another, and coal +down below in several, and we can grow a +great variety of plants on all these different +soils. We have to thank “upheaval” and +“depression” for this. The force which is +always working below us has turned up the +different soils like a gigantic plough, and +brought some to the top and covered others, +so that instead of having to dig down deeper +than ever we have yet, we have only to go +from one county to another to find the +different rocks. We know that we could not +get at the coal in Sussex without going down +an unknown depth through the chalk and +other earths, but we dig for it in the North +of England, where we know its depth below +the surface.</p> + +<p>I will try now to give you some idea of +the way in which the rocks come in their +order, or the succession of formations as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> +geologists call it. If we started to walk from +Wales to London the rocks we should pass +over would be—slate and flagstones in +Wales, and going on towards London, limestone, +old red sandstone, more limestones, +coal beds, new red sandstone, oolite, greensand, +chalk, and last London clay. We +might not always find each of these near the +surface, but they would be found to be the +principal rocks on a line between Wales and +London, the oldest being in Wales and the +newest or most recent as we get nearer +London. That word “oolite” which I used +comes from two Greek words meaning “roe” +and “stone,” because the rock is composed of +little rounded grains of a chalky substance +shaped like the hard roe of a fish, or like +sago before it is cooked.</p> + +<p>If you look at the following table you will +see how the principal rocks are placed one +upon the other, beginning at the lowest or +oldest at the bottom and going up to the +newest at the top of the table, and on the +right hand side I have written the names of +the principal fossils which each kind of earth +contains.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span></p> + +<p class="center no-indent fs120 wsp">TABLE OF THE SUCCESSION OF FORMATIONS.</p> + +<table class="autotable fs90"> +<tr> +<td class="tdc" rowspan="4">TERTIARY, or Upper Rocks</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc bt bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Peat bogs and caves</td> +<td class="tdl">Fossil Man, with stone implements, &c., mammoth, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, Irish stag, cave lion, &c.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">River-mud and brickearth, gravels, and boulder clay (alluvium)</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Crag of Eastern Counties</td> +<td class="tdl">Numerous shell-fish, mastodon</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc bb bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">London clay, &c.</td> +<td class="tdl">Turtles, crocodiles, shell-fish</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc" rowspan="13">SECONDARY, or Middle Rocks</td> +<td class="tdc bt bl"></td> +<td class="tdc" rowspan="3">Cretaceous</td> +<td class="tdc bl bt"></td> +<td class="tdl">Chalk (with and without flints)</td> +<td class="tdl">Foraminifera, &c., sponges, corals, sea-urchins, shell-fish (Belemnites, Ammonites, &c.), fishes</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Greensand and gault</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc bb bl"></td> +<td class="tdc bl bb"></td> +<td class="tdl">Wealden clay, &c.</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc bt bl"></td> +<td class="tdc" rowspan="8">Oolites</td> +<td class="tdc bl bt"></td> +<td class="tdl">Portland stone</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Kimmeridge clay</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Coral rag</td> +<td class="tdl">Immense reptiles, the Ichthyosaurus, Plesiosaurus, Megalosaurus, Pterodactyl, &c.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Oxford clay</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Cornbrash and forest marble</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Great oolite</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Fullers’ earth</td> +<td class="tdl">Animals allied to the opossum and kangaroo</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc bb bl"></td> +<td class="tdc bl bb"></td> +<td class="tdl">Lower oolite</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdl">Lias clay and limestone</td> +<td class="tdl">Cycads and other plants</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdl">New red marl and sandstone</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc" rowspan="7">PRIMARY, or Lower Rocks</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc bl bt"></td> +<td class="tdl">Coal</td> +<td class="tdl">Ferns, club-mosses, a few firs, calamites, &c., in great abundance</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Millstone grit</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Mountain limestone</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Old red sandstone</td> +<td class="tdl">Numerous corals, shell-fish, trilobites, fishes, &c.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Silurian limestones and slates</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Cambrian slates</td> +<td class="tdl">The Laurentian rocks contain the oldest known fossil, the Eozöon (or “life-dawn animal”)</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc bl bb"></td> +<td class="tdl">Laurentian rocks</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc" rowspan="3">IGNEOUS, or Volcanic Rocks</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc bl bt"></td> +<td class="tdl">Greenstone, basalt</td> +<td class="tdl">Of various ages (no fossils)</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc bl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Porphyry</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +<td class="tdc bl bb"></td> +<td class="tdl">Granite, &c.</td> +<td class="tdc"></td> +</tr> +</table> +<br> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span></p> + +<p>If you read this table upwards from the +bottom you will notice that life began in a +very small way with Eozöon (the “life-dawn +animal”), that fishes appeared afterwards, that +the wonderful forests of the coal period then +grew and were covered up by other rocks +and pressed into solid coal, that numbers of +great crocodile-like animals lived all through +the oolite time, how the deep wide beds +of chalk were laid down by humble foraminifera, +and when we get to the recent +newest beds of gravel, mud, sand, clay, &c., +the sweepings by water of the older rocks +ground down by ages of wear and tear, we +have the mammoth, mastodon, megatherium, +and other great vegetable eaters, and lastly +Man himself with his simple weapons of +stone, bone, and horn—our early forefathers.</p> + +<p>You must always keep in mind that the +greatest of these changes have taken place +very slowly. Mountains have been raised, +and whole continents have been sunk by +movements so slow that if the hands of a +clock went only once round the dial in a year +the hand would go faster than these mountains<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> +have risen or the continents sunk. Almost +always whenever there has been sudden and +<em>violent</em> action it has been near volcanoes or +during earthquakes; but these things, terrible +as they are to the people living near, disturb +only a very small part of the surface, and +such violence neither buried the coal beds +nor raised the slate hills of Wales. Many of +the small effects of the internal force of the +earth have been sudden and violent, but the +greatest and grandest have been slower than +anything we can imagine.</p> + +<p>If this had not been so, we should not +find fossil shells just as they sank quietly to +the bottom of ancient seas, quite undisturbed. +We should not find delicate ferns and insects +with all their breakable parts perfectly preserved, +and as lightly laid as if you had +put them away carefully in a cabinet upon +cotton wool. Yet many of these have sunk +down hundreds of feet below the open air +where they <em>must</em> have lived. We find the +ripple marks of the waves on old sandstones, +and even the prints of the feet of birds and +animals as they walked upon that rock when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span> +it was soft sand, and the little pits made +by rain-drops on the moist earth. All this +speaks of stillness, and gentle movement, no +violence. So slowly and softly have these +rocks settled down, that we can read in them +the history of the life that was. But if there +had been any sudden and rough movement +all these fossils might have been broken up +and we should have had nothing but fragments, +and the “puzzle of life” could never +have been put together. Nature’s forces are +immense, but they work slowly, irresistibly, +and majestically.</p> + + +<h3>THE ICE AGE.</h3> + +<p>We have seen now what the principal rocks +are made of and the way in which their places +have been changed by upheaval and depression. +Water, as we know, has been at work +and has done great things in <em>all</em> ages of the +World’s history. I have called it “one of +Nature’s most powerful tools,” and when we +look at the quantity of chalk alone that there +is in the world, and remember that this was all +laid down in water, and perhaps a great part<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span> +of its lime carried down by rivers to the seas +where it settled to the bottom, after the +corals and small shell-fish had worked it into +their bodies, we are right in thinking water +a great Magician indeed. Why, even so +small a river as the Thames carries down to +the sea every year as much dissolved earth +as would make a good large hill; and what +must such rivers as the Nile, the Amazon, +the Mississippi, and the great Chinese rivers +do! There must have been gigantic rivers, +too, in the old times, or else it would have +been impossible that the deep sandstone and +slate beds could have been formed; for these +are all laid down by the washing away of +earth in water.</p> + +<p>Ice, which is only solid water, has also +been a powerful tool in shaping the surface +of the Earth, but it has not been <em>always</em> at +work as water has. Ice now covers only a +comparatively small part of the globe near the +north and south poles, and mountains like +those in Switzerland; but by watching what +ice is doing now in these places we are able +to be certain that there has been a time when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> +it covered Scotland, Cumberland, Wales, +Sweden and Norway, and nearly all North +America. In watching the great “rivers of +ice,” called glaciers, in the Alps, for instance, +we see that they slip down from the mountains +slowly, creeping on year by year, and +bringing with them pieces of rock and stones. +We see also where they have melted that they +have been grinding the rocks beneath them +with their great weight, and have cut grooves +into, and scraped and polished the hardest +granite. The stones underneath the glaciers +have been pressed so heavily upon the rocks +that they have left deep marks, and we find +the same kinds of marks and heaps of stones +in many mountains where there are no +glaciers now. There are other things too +which convince us that a great ice sheet +spread over almost the whole of Great Britain. +When the huge icebergs break away from +the frozen shores of Greenland and North +America, they often have frozen into their +ice large blocks of rock, sand, gravel, &c., +and when they drift into the warmer seas of +the south they melt, and of course these<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span> +blocks or “boulders,” as they are called, sink +to the bottom. Just the same kind of boulders +are found in many parts of the world, +where icebergs never come now, and as they +are of a different rock from that on which +they lie, they must have been brought there +somehow. We naturally suppose then that +they were brought by icebergs. Sometimes +boulders of granite have been found thus +among clay, many miles from where there +are any granite rocks on the surface, and +there can be no doubt that they were originally +frozen into an iceberg, which floated away +with them and when it melted left them so far +from their native place. In many of the midland +and eastern counties once floated these +icebergs, dropping the stones and boulders +which they brought away from the Welsh, +Cumberland, and Scottish mountains.</p> + +<p>The climate of the earth must have been +fearfully cold when our country was covered +with ice, just as Greenland is now. Geologists +suppose that there must have been more +than one age of ice, and that between these +ages the climate of the world was pretty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> +much the same as at present, although it is +certain that there were periods when England +was much warmer, because many of +the fossil plants could not have grown in a +cold climate.</p> + +<p>You will want to know whether there +were any land animals living during the ice +periods. It is impossible to be quite certain, +but it is most likely that the mammoth was +living both before and during the <em>last</em> ice age, +because its bones have been found among +the earths brought down by the glaciers.</p> + +<p>I have said all you will be likely to remember +at present about the nature of the +different rocks, but it will help you to understand +better how they have been laid one +upon the other, and how they have been +moved and broken by upheaval and subsidence, +if you look at the drawings on +page <a href="#i_p051-1">51</a>.</p> + + +<h3>DENUDATION.</h3> + +<p>It has often happened that some of the +harder and older rocks, like granite and +slate, have pushed themselves through those<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> +earths lying above them, and then the sea +or a great river has washed away all the +earths from one side of the rock. The rain, +too, falling for thousands of years, has swept +them down into the valleys and mixed them +together. This is called denudation, or +“laying bare” the harder rocks by washing +the softer ones away from them. Those +beds of pebbles on the sea shore also have +been battering against the rocks for ages and +very gradually wearing them away, as you +can see if you watch the stones being +driven into and sucked out of holes and +cracks by every wave. Thus, both the +loose stones and the solid rocks get polished +and ground away, and Nature is always +destroying and making again by turns. If +this destruction went on continually without +any raising of the land to make up for it, the +surface of the whole Earth would in time +become level; but old sea beds are always +being slowly raised above the water and +prepared for the growth of plants and the +habitation of animals.</p> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_p051-1" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p051-1.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent"><em>Upheaval.</em></p></figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_p051-2" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p051-2.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent"><em>Subsidence.</em></p></figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_p051-3" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p051-3.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent"><em>Denudation.</em></p></figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<p>If you watch the little rills of water on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>any rainy day, trickling down a hill, or the +springs which bubble up at the foot of cliffs +on the sea shore, you will see an example of +denudation in a small way. The earth is +washed off the surface here and there, and +carried down and laid up in banks in some +places, and the harder ground underneath is +laid bare. Little beds of stones are collected +in one place, and sticks and straws and such +light things in another, and this is just what +has been done on a large scale in mountain +regions, all over the world for many centuries.</p> + +<p>In the uppermost sketch on page <a href="#i_p051-1">51</a> you +will see how the granite has been lifted +up with the layers of other earth along its +sides, and afterwards even layers have been +deposited above; in the second there has +been a great crack in the land, and a great +mass of rock has subsided, and the hollow has +become filled up in time with clay, and mould, +and rich soil, so that some one has built a +house and made a garden on it; in the third +the river has cut a gorge in rocks which were +once continuous from cliff to cliff, wearing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span> +away the softer earths more easily than the +harder. If the Earth was cut into in different +places we should find the rocks arranged in a +very similar way to that in the three sketches.</p> + + +<h3>BOILING SPRINGS, ETC.</h3> + +<p>In several different countries there are +very strange sights, but scarcely anything +is more astonishing than the fountains of +boiling water which shoot up out of the +ground. There are a good many of them +not far from us, in Iceland, and many +hundreds in Wyoming in America, and they +are called “geysers.” Steam and boiling +water, and sometimes mud, are thrown up by +these natural fountains to a height of 200 feet—as +high as the top of the spire of a church. +The water must come from a great depth +in the ground—perhaps many thousand feet +down—where the heat is intense. This water +springing up with clouds of snow-white steam, +and falling all round in showers, has a most +beautiful appearance. These geysers now and +then throw out very little water, just bubbling +up above the ground, and then travellers boil<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span> +eggs and chickens and such things in them, +and have a pic-nic near them. It is impossible +to say how long they have lasted, +but we know from history that some have +been spouting out water for at least 2,000 +years, and how much longer no one can tell. +They may have something to do with volcanoes, +because water may have found its +way to the heated interior of the earth, and +being converted into steam, expands and +causes an eruption.</p> + +<p>Now that we have some idea of the construction +of the Earth, we must go on to the +<em>life</em> of the wonderful plants and creatures +which have peopled it.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_VEGETABLE_PART"><em>THE VEGETABLE PART.</em></h2> +</div> + +<h3>THE DAWN OF LIFE.</h3> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">The</span> first beams of the rising sun, and the +first grey light of the morning, tell us of the +coming day; but we cannot even think of +the dawn of that far-off day in the Earth’s +history, when no voice of man or beast was +heard, and no trees or grass covered it, without +solemn wonder at the immense distance +that day is from us. A thousand ages are +in the sight of the Creator but as yesterday, +and the period of man’s existence is only +a moment compared to that of the lowly +creatures which built up this World for him. +In the first seas and on the land nothing was +heard but the rushing of waters and the roaring +of the fires of volcanoes.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to be quite certain +whether the first living things were animals +or plants; but I think it most likely that +very simple plants grew first, and that very<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span> +simple animals came after or with them. +Among the first of these, or perhaps the very +first, were some small animals called <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Eozöon</i>, +which means the “life-dawn animal,” and +with them grew some simple plants. On the +banks of the St. Lawrence river in Canada +there is a great bed of rock called the +Laurentian rocks, made almost entirely of +the tiny remains of the “life-dawn animal,” +which, when we look at them through a microscope, +are found to possess nearly the same +structure as some lowly organized shells +living in the seas now. These rocks are +found in many parts of the world besides—in +Eastern America, Bavaria, Scotland, and +Norway; and in some places their thickness +has been estimated at thirty thousand feet, or +nearly six miles, or one hundred times as +thick as St. Paul’s Cathedral is high! These +little creatures you see were at work over +a great part of the Earth’s surface, and you +may fancy how many thousands of thousands +of years it took them to build up these rocks. +The “life-dawn animal” is far older than the +chalk-building foraminifera, and so far as we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span> +know it lived alone in its seas. There were +none of the beautiful twisted <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ammonite</i> shell-fish, +nor the shark-like fishes of the chalk +seas. The eozöon was the only kind of +living creature, the “lord of creation” for the +time; and though storms raged in the seas +it inhabited, the water was so deep that it +lived on undisturbed. When you are able +to use a microscope you will be able to see +the traces left by these tiny animals in what +is now hard stone.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>Life began in a very small way: there +were none of the great land animals we +have now; but these seemingly insignificant +builders were at work so long that they +made the immense rocks I have told you of. +But this is not all. About this time some +very simple plants grew on the land, and +were carried down by the rivers and formed +deep beds. After a long time these became +covered up with different earths and were +turned into the substance called “black-lead,” +which you use in drawing pencils. But this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span> +is not really lead; it is almost pure carbon—in +fact, the oldest kind of coal—so old that it +will not now burn like coal, and is entirely +made up of fossil plants crushed out of shape, +so that we cannot now trace their forms, as +we can the plants of the coal. When then +you next take up a drawing pencil it will +be easy to remember that the black substance +which marks the paper was once a +living plant, now changed by heat and pressure +into almost pure carbon. As the name +eozöon has been given to the “life-dawn +animal,” I will give this black-lead the name +of <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Eodendron</i>, or the “dawn-plant.”<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p>Two very simple forms of life then +occupied the earth and sea at the earliest +time when anything at all was living, and +strangely enough we use the dead bodies of +both of them. We build houses of the rocks +the eozöon laid down at the bottom of the +sea, and the beautiful art of drawing is carried +on with the carbon from the first plant +life of the world—the eodendron.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span></p> + +<p>I must take you away presently to the +coal, and sandstone, and chalk, and show you +how plants and animals gradually increased +in number and size, and fishes began to +inhabit the seas, and all living things were +slowly going on to greater perfection; for as +time went on there was a steady progress +from creatures like the eozöon, which had +scarcely any power of moving about, to the +active, quarrelsome and greedy things like +crabs and lobsters which came after them, +and the gigantic ferns of the coal beds. +The peaceful “life-dawn animals” drew their +food from the vegetable substances dissolved +in the waters, though they perhaps also lived +on animals still smaller than themselves; but, +by-and-by, creatures, which must have been +monsters to them, swarmed in the seas and +devoured their smaller companions wholesale; +and in time the Earth became very much the +same as it is now, a place where the struggle +for life is always going on. It is certain that +animals have fed upon one another from the +very beginning; but this is no doubt a wise +law of the Creator to prevent them from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> +increasing too fast, as they would do if all that +were born lived, and none were destroyed.</p> + +<p>We know much less about the vegetation—the +plants and grasses—of the early ages +of the world than of the animals; because +plants rot away faster than bones and shells, +and, besides, are less likely to be found in +places where they would be preserved. A +dead tree might be eaten up entirely by +insects, as the white ants eat up fallen trees +in a short time in tropical countries, and +what is left of them crumbles away to fine +powder and mixes with the soil. Immense +trees are thus devoured now by millions of +tiny insects no longer than your thumb nail, +in India and Australia. No such thing as a +whole and perfect fossil tree with every twig +and leaf has been found; but then the coal +beds are really great forests which have been +buried for so long a time that they have +quite altered in appearance. Still, among +these coal beds we often find the bark, fruit, +stems, and branches of trees very much like +firs, and ferns, and huge club-mosses, which +have the same shape they had when living,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span> +though they are quite black, and burn exactly +like coal.</p> + +<p>But there were plants long before the +coal forests lived, and many fossil sea weeds +are found in the old sandstones and limestones +in Wales and other places.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> The Old +Red Sandstone, whose position you can see +below the coal in the table of succession of +formations, page <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, does not give us many +fossil plants, though fishes and shells are +common. This rock is found in Scotland, +Herefordshire, Devonshire, and Ireland, as +well as other places, and is often more than +2,000 feet thick. It was not all formed in +salt water we know, because many of the fossil +fishes and shells it contains are fresh water +kinds. It must all have been made of the +pieces of still older rocks worn away by +rivers and settled like a sediment in immense +lakes, some of which were fresh water. Then, +after the Old Red Sandstone, came a time +when the limestones below the coal were +laid down at the bottom of a vast sea, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span> +here the remains of land plants are of course +few. Then it seems there must have been +a very long time when there were large +continents all over the world raised above +the seas, but not very much, and on these +the forests grew which afterwards became +coal fields. Until this time the plants had +been mostly water weeds, reeds, rushes, and +sea weeds, and it was not until England and +Ireland became one continent, as they were +once and covered with woods, that the great +period of vegetation began.</p> + +<p>The growth of plants was then most +wonderful; but although coal is found in +many different parts of the world, it was not +all formed at one time, and though it is +plentiful in England and Wales, Scotland, +Ireland, France, Belgium, Russia, Hungary, +Australia, New Zealand, China, and Borneo, +it is older in some countries than in others. +It is fortunate, however, that this useful +material was made in Nature’s workshop in +so many different countries, or it would have +to be carried from one to another. The coal +forests were not the same trees as we have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span> +now—oaks, elms, ashes, limes, and so on. +Most of them had rather hollow trunks and +splendid waving tops like ferns and reeds, +though there were some like our fir-trees.</p> + +<p>If you lie down in the long grass before +it is mown, and look through the stalks +and fancy yourself an inch high only, you +will have some idea how the coal forest +would have looked if you had lived then. +But there were no human beings on the +Earth then, and I do not think there were +any large animals, at least none have been +found in the coal itself, except in Switzerland, +where a few bones of the mammoth +(an ancient elephant) and of the rhinoceros +have been discovered in the much newer +beds of coal, and also those of a large reptile +like a crocodile in the coal beds of Ohio +in America.</p> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_p065-1" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p065-1.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent">II.</p> +<p class="center no-indent"><em>Fossil Tree Fern.</em></p> +</figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_p065-2" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p065-2.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent"><em>Calamites.</em></p> + +<p class="right"><em>Lepidodendron.</em></p> + +<p class="center no-indent"><em>Different Kinds of Plants of the Coal Forests.</em></p></figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<p>In such immense forests insects must +certainly have been plentiful, and some of +the fossil bodies of beetles, dragon-flies, and +spiders, have been preserved, and a few tree +lizards.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Of course the edges of the coal +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>forests were washed here and there by the +salt sea, and there must have been some fresh +water rivers and ponds, for we find both fresh +and salt water shells in these beds. It was +almost dark in these forests, so thickly did the +plants grow together. There were enormous +club-mosses close together and as high as most +houses, with their leaves interlaced making a +complete network to shut out the sun. But +the sun which shone on the forests was warm, +and the air which went through them was soft, +or they would not have grown so wonderfully. +Indeed, there can be no doubt that the +climate of northern regions was once much +warmer than it is now. A thick bed of coal +was discovered by the Arctic Expedition +in 1875-6 actually within five hundred miles +of the North Pole, where the ice on the sea +is now thirty or forty feet thick!<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> The +forest which formed this coal could only have +grown in a temperate climate, and there are +no forests there now; it is so intensely cold +they could not live. There must then have +been a great change in the climate of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span> +Arctic regions since that coal was living vegetation. +The few plants and mosses which +can live there now are of a very different +and more hardy kind than those of the coal +forests.</p> + +<p>If you look at the engraving facing page <a href="#i_p065-1">64</a>, +you will see a drawing of one of the tree +ferns with its delicate fronds which grew +so abundantly in the coal forests, and there +are many other plants, some like the common +“mare’s tails,” or <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">calamites</i>, growing in shallow +ponds and ditches now—only the “mare’s +tails” or calamites of the coal forests were as +high as poplars.<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> You can imagine what a +splendid sight these forests of ferns, club-mosses, +and “mare’s tails,” must have been, +and what a multitude of beautiful insects and +butterflies must have flitted about in them; +but their frail bodies have almost all perished, +so that we know very little of the animated +creatures of the time.</p> + +<p>Besides several sorts of coal both soft and +hard there is a substance called “lignite,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span> +which is scarcely wood and scarcely coal, of a +brown colour. In fact, lignite is wood almost +turned to coal, and it has helped us to learn +that coal was once living wood; but it is not +nearly so old as the coal. Then again there +is the beautiful substance called “jet” used for +making bracelets. This is a kind of fossil +gum or pitch dropped from the trees while +they were growing, and, though different in +colour, it is much the same in kind as amber. +Amber is often found with flies, spiders, and +small leaves imbedded in it. When this fossil +resin or gum was flowing out of the ancient +pine-trees, and was quite sticky, flies settled +upon it and became entangled in it, and as +more of the gum flowed out they became +quite covered. Then the gum dropped from +the tree and hardened, and it is now found in +lumps on the shores of the Baltic Sea, and in +beds of sand and clay with fossil wood. It is +of a beautiful bright yellow colour, and beads +for necklaces and other ornaments are made +out of it.</p> + +<p>If we arrange the things we have been +talking about in order, the oldest first, they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span> +would come thus: plumbago or black-lead—or, +as I have called it, eodendron, “the life-dawn +plant”—first, then hard coal, then soft +coal, then lignite and jet, then bog oak and +peat. But I must tell you something about +bog oak and peat. In many of the swamps +and bogs of the World the trunks of dead +trees are found, which have become quite +black and almost like lignite, because they +have been buried so long. Thus, in the bogs +of Ireland oak trees are often found, and they +were most likely living when the reindeer inhabited +Ireland. This old bogwood is made +into beads for necklaces and other ornaments. +Peat is a partly decayed vegetable substance, +with beautiful little plants growing on its surface, +and is really coal in its infancy. It is found +all over the world more or less in wet places, +and consists of the roots and stems of mosses +and reeds, some of which are like the gigantic +plants of the coal period, but very small in +comparison. I have no doubt that in time +some of these peat bogs may be turned into +coal if they sink down and become covered +with other earths, but at present they are all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span> +on the surface and so soft that they are dangerous +to walk upon because one may sink +in and be smothered.</p> + +<p>This, as far as we can trace it, is a sketch +of the history of vegetable life on our Earth. +We will go back to the coal for a moment and +see what the animal life of that time was. +The seas of the time of the coal forests were +sometimes shallow, sometimes deep, and in +the limestone rocks of the oceans which +separated the great continents of that time +there is a record of the inhabitants of the +seas. The land plants were of more than +1,000 different kinds, and there were more +than 200 kinds of fishes in the waters, and +corals, shells, and small crab-like animals innumerable. +The fishes were fellows with +terrible teeth, and their bodies were covered +with strong hard scales. One of these fish +was thirty feet long, and there were others +of considerable size. It is curious that the +fishes of this time remind one of reptiles +(lizards and crocodiles), just as the birds of +a future time seem to have something of the +reptile about them, as you will see by-and-by.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span></p> + +<p>I dare say you have remarked while +reading that all the plants and animals of the +early ages of the world seem to be made on +a simple plan, and as the Earth grows older +they become more perfect, and this is just +what I want you to take notice of all through. +The plants of the coal period, you have seen, +were nothing like so perfect in construction, +beautiful as they were, as the forest trees of +the present time, neither were the animals +so perfect as those living now. There has +been <em>progress</em>, step by step, throughout the +vegetable and animal creation; and, though +many of the lower forms of the early ages +exist now, there are others far superior to +them which did not exist then: but all this +will come in “The Animal Part.”</p> + +<p>About the middle of the Earth’s age came +the wonderful period of vegetation which +gave us our coal, and after that there was a +great and busy time, when huge reptiles and +reptile-like birds, and then true birds, made +their appearance. But that belongs to the +next part of the “puzzle of life.”</p> + +<p>If we look with astonishment at the coal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span> +forests, we may also well think of them with +thankfulness. Here is the sunshine of past +ages stored up for our use, and we bring it +out again to warm ourselves, cook our food, +make all our iron things, and drive our steam-engines! +Can any romance be finer than +this, that we are carried across to America +and India and Australia in steam-boats driven +by the “fossil sunlight” of ages and ages past, +and whirled along at sixty miles an hour over +iron rails by the same stored-up strength?</p> + +<p>If you doubt this, think of living trees. Do +they not live by the air and sunlight? Will +they grow without these? They spread +their branches and leaves to gather the +warmth and light from the air, and when +they are cut down and dried, and you put a +match to the wood, all the old warmth and +light come out again; and we know that +the coal is only fossil wood. Our Creator +wastes nothing. Even when there were no +people living to rejoice in the sun, He +thought of those people who <em>should</em> come in +time, and not one of the fiery rays of the +fierce sun was lost. These mighty forests<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span> +were sent to gather it, and when they had +died down they sank below the surface and +were covered from the air, that none of their +light or heat should escape.</p> + +<p>In such forests it is strange that there +were no birds, especially as there were swarms +of insects, and no doubt abundance of worms. +But no bone of bird or any trace of feathered +songster of these lovely groves has yet been +found. Little lizards chased flies and beetles +up and down the stems of the club-mosses and +ferns, and larger reptiles lurked in the long +damp grass under the shade. The pools and +ponds were filled with curious fishes, and +reefs of beautiful white coral fringed all the +shores of the seas.</p> + +<p>But the Earth was not fit for the habitation +of man. The fruits of the trees were not such +as he could have eaten, and their wood was +not hard enough to build houses of. Still it +was being got ready for him, and not a leaf +waved uselessly in the bright, warm air, and +not a tree fell to the ground, but it was to be +turned into coal, and to come forth again one +day a hard black lump, without any of its +former beauty, but to give back the light and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span> +heat it had gathered from the sun ages and +ages ago.</p> + +<p>Many periods in the Earth’s history have +passed since the coal period, and in every +one of these the trees have been increasing +in perfection, though there have never since +been such great numbers of a few kinds +growing. When we come to the more lately +formed beds of earth we begin to find the +cypress, willow, ash, oak, elm, and other +forest trees which are living now. The +trunks of these trees, blackened by age, lie +buried in peat bogs and swamps all over +Europe. The mighty Mississippi river brings +down immense quantities of dead trees, and +as these sink to the bottom near its mouth +they are forming future coal beds. Along +the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk, too, and +stretching far away under the German +Ocean, is an old English forest. In some +places the trunks of the buried trees may +be seen standing upright just where they +grew. The nets of the fishermen are continually +bringing up pieces of wood, roots, +and seeds; and when the sea washes away +the soft cliffs here the bones, teeth, and tusks<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span> +of the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, +and other large animals which inhabited this +forest, may be seen in great numbers.</p> + +<p>Down below the waves of ocean have +these woods sunk with all their once living +creatures, and though you may suppose that +it must have been very long ago that they +grew, they are of the same kind as those +which now make the hills and valleys of +England beautiful.</p> + +<p>Sometimes a forest must sink very fast, +for travellers have told us how they have +sailed on rivers and lakes over the tops of +sunken trees, and, looking down into the +clear water, have seen the branches waving +below—tall trees standing upright at the +bottom, and the boats sailing over their tops!</p> + +<p>We must now pass on to the living creatures +which peopled the Earth, and their +story can be told with more certainty than +that of the perishable plants which clothed +the surface of the ground, and, while they +rendered it beautiful, also served as food and +shelter for innumerable animals, and have +become so useful to us as coal, lignite, black-lead, +and other productions of ancient forests.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Specimen in Table-case 15, Room V., North Gallery +British Museum.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> The name <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Eophyton</i> has also been suggested for the +earliest vegetable forms.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> Divisions A and B of Case 1, Room I., North Gallery, +contain some of the oldest known fossil plants.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> Fossil insects in Table-case No. 14, Room V.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> In 81° 44′ N. latitude.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> Specimens of plants from the coal in Cases No. 2, 3, 4, +in Room I.</p> + +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span></p> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_ANIMAL_PART"><em>THE ANIMAL PART.</em></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">We</span> must now go back and collect the +smaller pieces of “the puzzle” which make +up the animal part. The great periods of +vegetation ended in our country with the coal +forests, and there has been no such wonderful +growth of plants since the time when the +New Red Sandstone, lying above the coal, +was formed; though no doubt trees and plants +have since flourished, as they do now on the +Earth, but not in such quantities as during +the coal period.</p> + +<p>We remember that the eozöon, “the life-dawn +animal,” is the oldest animal we know +of, and that it lived so long ago as when the +Laurentian rocks were laid down at the +bottom of the seas of that time; then in +later rocks we find the burrows of sea worms +in the stone, and later still simple shells +with two valves like the common mussel, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> +other animals of a simple kind, like the corals, +sponges, and star-fishes which exist now. +There must have been millions of these +creatures in the older limestone seas, for the +rocks are almost entirely composed of their +fossil shells and bodies. By-and-by a rather +superior animal inhabited the seas of Wales, +called a trilobite, of which you will see a +picture on the opposite page. This curious +animal was of the same family as the shrimps +and prawns, but much larger, and he must +have been a giant among the others. None +of these animals had any bones, you must +understand; but they had a hard shelly +covering to support their soft bodies inside, +and no doubt the trilobites were able to swim +about very fast.<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp85" id="i_p079" style="max-width: 33.9375em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p079.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent">III.</p> + +<p class="center no-indent"><em>Trilobite.</em></p></figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<p>What I want you to take notice of now is +the <em>progress</em> that has been going on from the +almost motionless eozöon to the shell-fish +and star-fish, which could crawl along the +bottom of the sea and over the rocks, to this +active, quick-moving trilobite, with his great +paddles. Then the next step is a very great +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span>one, when we come to animals with bones. +The first of these are fishes. All the other +bones are joined to the backbone, therefore +all animals with bones are called <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">vertebrata</i>, +which is a Latin word meaning having a +backbone with joints. Now animals with +bones are plainly superior to those with only +shells, and when we find fishes among the +rocks of Wales and Devonshire we know +that we are beginning to pick up some +important pieces of the “puzzle of life.” +These fishes were most of them related to +the sturgeon, and their bones and teeth are +found in great quantities in the Old Red +Sandstone rocks, just below the coal.<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>It is not until we get above the coal into +the oolite or egg-stone rocks that still larger +and altogether superior animals, both of sea +and land, began to increase, and this is called</p> + + +<h3>THE AGE OF REPTILES.</h3> + +<p>This has been called the reptile age because +there were such numbers of animals<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> +like crocodiles, lizards, and tortoises (which +are all reptiles), and some of them were of +immense size. For instance, there was a huge +creature something like a frog, but as large +as a Shetland pony, called the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Labyrinthodon</i>, +with a great many curious teeth, and this +animal has left footprints in the New Red +Sandstone which have been dried and buried, +we can’t tell how long, and there are the +cracks made by the sun drying the place he +walked over when that was soft earth. +There is a drawing of some of these footsteps +in the picture on the next page, and there +are also the footprints of a large bird, and +you can see where he walked over the soft +earth and made a long line of footmarks; and +if you look at the footprints of birds on the +snow or mud now you will notice marks just +like these. Then there is another picture of +a single footprint of a large bird, and all those +round dots are where rain-drops fell and left +their marks in the soft earth.</p> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp85" id="i_p083" style="max-width: 43.5625em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p083.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent">IV.</p> + +<p class="center no-indent"><em>(1) Footprints of Labyrinthodon.</em></p> + +<p class="center no-indent"><em>(3) Footprints of Birds, (2) with marks of Rain-drops</em>.</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<p>I dare say you will wonder how it is that +these footprints have not disappeared. Well, +when the animals and birds that made them +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>had gone the marks became filled with dry +sand, no doubt blown in by the wind, and +then the mud dried hard, and at last it became +covered with other earths and sank slowly +down, just as the coal forests had done before, +and remained there until we dug it up with +these tracks of the birds and animals that +lived then. Some of these birds must have +been larger than any living now, because their +footmarks are so long. None of their bones +have been found yet, I believe, but plenty of +the teeth and some bones of the labyrinthodon +have. The real footmarks, of course, +are very large, though they are small in the +picture.<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>In the great beds of Lias there are many +other strange animals, and among them are +two great fish-lizards called the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ichthyosaurus</i> +and <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Plesiosaurus</i>. Both of these lived in the +water and perhaps came on land sometimes, +and it is certain that they must have been very +ferocious creatures, from their great size and +sharp teeth. The plesiosaurus would be able<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span> +to raise his long neck above the water and +snap at some of those curious birds rather +like bats which lived at the time, and of +which I shall have something to say presently. +Some of these fish-lizards were as large as +whales, and their bodies have been so beautifully +preserved in the limestone rocks that we +can actually sometimes find in their stomachs +the food they lived on.</p> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_p087-1" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p087-1.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent">V.</p> + +<p class="center no-indent"><i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ichthyosaurus.</i></p> +</figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_p087-2" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p087-2.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent"><i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Plesiosaurus.</i></p> + +<p class="center no-indent">FISH-REPTILES.</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<p>Now we have got to a higher order of +creation still, these fish-lizards, and they remind +one of the next step in progress—birds. +You know that all birds lay eggs, so do +almost all reptiles, such as crocodiles, lizards, +and most snakes, so that they are alike in +this. Then the plesiosaurus with his long +neck reminds us of such birds as the heron +and the swan, but he is altogether more like +a reptile than either a fish or a bird. There +were also huge land reptiles, which lived in +the forests of the time, and must have been a +terror to the smaller animals. From the bones +of one of these which have been found in the +oolite clays near Weymouth in Dorsetshire +(the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Cetiosaurus</i>), we see that it must have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>been nearly as large as an elephant, and +there are others called the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Megalosaurus</i>, +<em>Dinosaurus</em>, &c. All these names end with +<em>saurus</em>, a name taken from the Greek word +meaning lizard; and you will see now why the +oolite, or “Jurassic”<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> age, as it is sometimes +called, is well named the “reptile age,” for +these creatures swarmed on the land and in +the sea. Specimens of these you can see for +yourselves in the cases on the walls of the +third room in the North Gallery of the British +Museum, where all the fossils are collected.</p> + +<p>But still more extraordinary animals +than any of these lived at the time, and we +can scarcely tell whether they were birds or +reptiles, as they were something like both, +but I suppose we must call them flying reptiles, +and they are the nearest approach to +birds that had yet existed. These creatures +are called <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Pterodactyles</i>, from two Greek words +which mean “wing-fingered.” Suppose the +little fingers of both your hands were a yard +longer than the others, and suppose a thick<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span> +leathery skin was stretched from the tips of +your long little fingers to each of your feet, +you would have wings something like a +pterodactyl and also something like the +wings of a bat. But the pterodactyl had a +long neck and a long beak-like mouth, full +of long sharp pointed teeth. It could not +walk much I think, but it could hang itself +up by its hind limbs to a tree or rock, head +downwards like a bat, and must have been +able to fly very strongly, with its huge +leathery wings, but it had no feathers. +There were swarms of these curious half +lizard half bird-like animals on the land, and +they were of all sizes, some no bigger than +a crow, and some as large as the albatross, +measuring twelve feet across their outstretched +wings. Their skeletons are some +of the commonest fossils in the oolite rocks, +all through the great reptile age.<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>Now you see we have come to a reptile +that can fly, but, excepting for its wings and +some of its bones, more like a crocodile than<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span> +a bird. A little further on we find another +curious animal in the oolite rocks, which is +much more like a true bird than the pterodactyl, +because it had feathered wings. It is +called the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Archæopteryx</i>, which means “ancient +wing,” and I have given a picture of it +on the same page as the pterodactyl, so that +you may compare them together. The blade-bone +and “merry-thought” of this creature +were exactly like those of a bird, and so +were the feet and legs, which would enable +it to walk easily, or perch on the branch of +a tree, but the tail was long and many-jointed +like that of a lizard, with a fan of +feathers growing on each side of it, and +short feathered wings. Then it most likely +had teeth like a lizard, and there were short +claws at the bend of the wings. This bird-reptile +was about the size of a crow, and was +the first we know of with feathers, and the +limestone rock has preserved it most beautifully +through all the long ages which have +passed since it flitted over the land of the +oolite period.<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> Later still than these, there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span> +lived in America, about the time the chalk was +formed in England, two strange birds called +<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Hesperornis</i> and <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ichthyornis</i>, both of which +had teeth in the jaws. The former was an +immense fellow like the penguin, with short +wings, and the latter was about the size of a +pigeon with large feathered wings.</p> + +<p>They are finding more of these curious +creatures every now and then in America. +Some are without teeth, and have a horny +bill like that of a real bird, and in other ways +more nearly resemble living birds; still they +have not lost the appearance of reptiles in +their principal bones.</p> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp85" id="i_p093-1" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p093-1.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent">VI.</p> + +<p class="center no-indent"><i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Pterodactyl</i> (<em>Wing-finger</em>).</p> +</figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp85" id="i_p093-2" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p093-2.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent"><i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Archæopteryx</i> (<em>Ancient-wing</em>).</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<p>I have been particular in describing some +of these fish-lizards and bird-reptiles; because +they, or their near relations, were the principal +inhabitants of land and sea from the end +of the coal period to the end of the chalk, +though there were of course swarms of fishes +and shell-fish; but I ought to tell you that +even so early as this there was at least one +animal known which suckled its young ones, +and this was a small insect-eating creature +not larger than a rat, of the same family +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span>(called <em>Marsupial</em>) as the kangaroo of +Australia, which carries its young ones in +a pocket or pouch in its skin.</p> + +<p>All this time we have been hunting for +parts of “the puzzle” in those ancient oolite +rocks between the coal and the chalk, and +those we have found are very important. +We have seen the slow progress from simple +sea shells to simple fishes, and then onwards +to fish-lizards and bird-reptiles with one +little marsupial animal, of a far higher kind, +in between, as if to tell us beforehand what +more complete and perfect animals we might +expect by-and-by. After the fishes we have +found fish-lizards, then bird-reptiles with +wings, but no feathers, and later still a bird-reptile +with wing and tail feathers. How +different the life of the Earth was at the end +of the “reptile age” of the oolite rocks, to +the far back Laurentian time when one +little creature, our old friend eozöon, alone +held possession of the seas!</p> + + +<h3>THE CRETACEOUS PERIOD.</h3> + +<p>Now let us look into the rocks next +above, and see what is to be found there.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span> +We have arrived in the Cretaceous period, +or time when the chalk was formed.<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> You +remember I told you you might call this +“foraminifera earth” because so much of +it was made up of the shells of these tiny +animals, thousands of which could be put into +a thimble. Whenever you make a mark with +a piece of drawing chalk you rub off a number +of them, and you will see what pretty little +creatures they were if you look at the drawings +of some of them on the next page as they are +seen under the microscope, magnified thousands +of times their natural size; but there +are others of different shapes. On the same +page too there is a handsome shell, called an +ammonite, and of its real size, common in +chalk rocks. The seas of the time must have +been very deep as I have explained before, +and the chalk contains numbers of bones of +fishes everywhere, and many of the remains +of the reptile-like creatures of the time before. +Corals, sea-urchins, crabs, &c., abounded, and +as you can scarcely ever see chalk without +immense flint stones in it, you may suppose +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>what millions of sponges lived on the rocks, +for these flints are partly made up of their +fossil bodies.<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> Another Cretaceous period is +beginning now at the bottom of the Atlantic +and Pacific Oceans, where it is deep enough +to cover the Alps, for these little foraminifera +are living on the surface in countless millions, +and day by day their fossil shells are settling +down to the bottom and forming a soft grey +mud, full of the carbonate of lime like chalk. +The climate of the Cretaceous age was mild +and pleasant, as we know from the kind of +animals in the seas. Slowly the water began +to get shallower and shallower by the upheaval +of the bed, and at last the bottom of +this mighty chalk ocean came up to the light +and sun, to be covered in some places with the +drift and worn particles of older rocks swept +over it by rivers, and to receive new plants and +new animals, and in some places to remain +almost bare, as it is on the downs of Brighton.</p> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp85" id="i_p097" style="max-width: 57.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p097.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent">VII.</p> + +<p class="center no-indent">FOSSILS OF THE CHALK.</p> + +<p class="center no-indent"> +1 <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ammonite.</i><br> +2 3 4 <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Foraminifera</i> (<em>Chalk-builders</em>).<br> +</p> +</figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<p>Now we take one more step upwards into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span> +almost a new world—the world on which +mighty animals lived, and which man came +to share with them.</p> + + +<h3>THE TERTIARY PERIOD.</h3> + +<p>The reign of the reptiles is now passed. +The ichthyosaurus and pterodactyl no longer +inhabited the seas and continents. Great +changes had taken place in the shape of the +land. A river larger than the Rhine swept +majestically through England from the borders +of Wales right out into the German +Ocean, and its banks were covered with forests +and marshes, where the new animals which +had come to take possession of the earth +lived and moved and had their being. The +mountains of the Pyrenees were raised above +the sea, and parts of Surrey and Sussex +appeared too. It was most likely in the +early part of the Tertiary period that the +stone was formed of which almost all Paris +is built. Fancy a great city built of the shells +of dead animals! One can scarcely believe it: +but the microscope lets us into this secret of +Nature. If we take a piece of this stone and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span> +examine it in a powerful microscope we see +that it is made almost entirely of tiny shells, +so small that myriads of them could be +packed in a nut-shell. How long must they +have been working to make all the stone beds +of which Paris is built? We cannot measure +the time, we can only know it must have +been enormous!</p> + +<p>All kinds of animals both of sea and land +increased in numbers and perfection. The +ammonites were dead, but their even more +beautiful relation, the nautilus, was living as +it is now. The trilobite was gone, but his +next relation, the lobster and crab, appeared. +Fishes abounded. Whales which suckle their +young ones appeared, and the numbers of vertebrata, +or animals with backbones, were more +numerous than they had ever been before. +Just as animals with bones are more perfect +than those with only skins or shells, so animals +which suckle their young ones are more perfect +than those which only lay eggs. Thus the +whale is a more perfect animal than the shark, +though both inhabit the water; and elephants +and even rats and mice more perfect still; and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> +because there were so many of these “sucklers,” +or mammalia as they are called, in the Tertiary +period, we know that all living creatures were +becoming more perfect. It will interest you +too to learn that monkeys began to appear +now, and that they were common in France, +while at the present time the only part of +Europe where they are to be found is on the +rock of Gibraltar.</p> + +<p>But I want particularly to tell you of the +giant animals—the Mammoth, Mastodon, +Megatherium, Dinotherium, and others, and +first let us see what the mammoth was like.</p> + +<p>In former times, when people accidentally +found the bones of these animals, they actually +thought they had belonged to giant <em>men</em>, and +we can scarcely wonder at that: but we know +better. If only one small bone is shown to +Professor Owen or Professor Huxley, he can +tell at once whether it belonged to a man or +an animal, a fish or a bird, and very often +the particular animal too. Well, the bones of +the mammoth were found in the north of +Russia on the banks of the river Lena in +1800: but the Russians knew of them before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span> +that, and the name they gave the animal +means “earth,” because they supposed it +burrowed in the earth like a mole. This one +is now in the Museum at St. Petersburg, and +its brownish coat and long black hairs, and +even the hoofs and some of the flesh, can be +distinctly seen. The drawing in the frontispiece +is taken from it. It was strange that +any people could have supposed that this +huge creature, larger than an elephant and +with great curved tusks ten feet long and +weighing 160 lbs., could have got underground +of its own accord: but that was the +only way in which they could account for +finding it buried in the earth on the banks of +the rivers. Look at the picture in the frontispiece; +what a splendid animal he was, this old +elephant; larger and stronger than any living +elephants! Immense quantities of their bones +are found in Siberia, and the tusks and teeth +are brought in ship-loads to England, where +they are sold for their ivory. Their skeletons +have been found in most countries of Europe, +in many parts of Asia, and in North America, +and these animals must have been common<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span> +at one time near London, for their bones have +been dug up in the brick earth at Ilford in +Essex and other places near the Thames. +There is a skull with tusks set up with iron +supports in the British Museum.<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p>There was besides another animal very +much like this called the Mastodon; but it had +tusks in the lower jaws as well as the upper, +four in all, and the lower tusks dropped out +when the animal grew old. The whole +skeleton of one of these is also put up in the +Museum, which you ought to go and see.<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> +Mastodons’ bones have been discovered in +England and other parts of Europe, and in +North and South America and India, so that +they were spread pretty well all over the world. +They had very curious pointed teeth rather +like a lot of fir cones piled together, not flat +grinders like those of the mammoth and all +living elephants, and perhaps they fed upon +fruits and nuts, and boughs, as I do not think +they could have managed well to chew grass +and leaves with such pointed teeth. The +teeth in their old dead jaws are still beautifully<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span> +white and look like china. Both the +mammoth and the mastodon had long trunks +of course, and they must have been grand looking +creatures marching about in the English +forests. We should be very much startled if +we were to meet one of them now in an English +wood: but there is no chance of that, +they have all passed away, and the only +relations they have living are the elephants of +Africa and Asia.</p> + +<p>During this Tertiary period, or at least +the early part of it, besides the mammoth and +mastodon, the hippopotamus and rhinoceros +were plentiful about the Thames. Those +same Ilford marshes in Essex have been a +complete storehouse of the remains of these +animals. The bones of a hundred different +mammoths and eighty rhinoceroses have been +dug up lately from the damp, black soil, as +well as many belonging to the hippopotamus, +and we can have no doubt that all the +swamps along the north side of the river +were inhabited by large herds of these huge +beasts, or so many of their skeletons could +not have been collected in one place. It is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span> +very likely they were overtaken in a flood of +the river and drowned, and their bodies sank +down in the mud of the river bank: but anyhow, +there they are to tell us that they +lived and died almost within sight of the +Tower of London, if it had been built then, +as of course it was not.</p> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_p108" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p108.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent">VIII.</p> + +<p class="center no-indent"><em>Gigantic Irish Stag</em> (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Cervus Megaceros</i>).</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<p>Long long ago too, before there was a +single brick where London stands, and when +the few human beings who were living were +obliged to hide themselves in caves, great +lions might have been heard roaring at night +in the forests of the Thames Valley. The +bones of this lion have been found in many +different parts of England, and a terrible +fellow he must have been, for some of his +canine teeth (the long sharp teeth in cats and +dogs) were more than six inches long. Indeed +they were like small swords, and this is why +he has been called the “sabre-toothed” lion. +There were also bears, like the great grisly +bear of America, and leopards, hyenas, and +wolves, and besides two kinds of ox far larger +than those we have now. But one of the +handsomest animals was the great Irish stag. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span>When standing upright the top of his horns +would be as high as two tall men. He was +indeed a fine fellow with his immense spreading +antlers. The deer in our parks would +look dwarfs beside him. He inhabited both +England and Ireland: but, being found more +often in Ireland, he has got the name of the +<em>Irish</em> stag. As many as thirty of the +skeletons of these stags have been found together +under a bog in Ireland, and in some of +the bones the marrow is still preserved, and +they burn well. Fences have been made of +these bones in Ireland, and when the people +of a small village in the county of Antrim +heard of the battle of Waterloo they made a +great bonfire of the bones and horns of the +Irish stag to rejoice over the victory. I dare +say these stags were hunted by wolves, and +perhaps driven on to the ice of ancient lakes, +where they broke through and got drowned, +for so many of their skeletons are found together. +I could not pass this magnificent stag +by without giving you a picture of him.<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span> +was a much nobler looking animal than the +reindeer, which lived along with him at the time +in England, and from his appearance I should +say he was a swift runner and great fighter. +Some antlers have been found locked together, +just as these stags died in mortal combat, and +I never see Sir Edwin Landseer’s beautiful +picture of two red-deer stags fighting without +thinking what a grand sight it would have been +to see two of these great Irish stags rushing +at each other with their powerful horns.</p> + +<p>Not one of those animals is living now, +and none of them is mentioned in any history +or tradition whatever, and though there is no +doubt that men living in Europe saw the +mammoth alive (as you will find in the next +chapter), they knew of no kind of writing in +which to tell us of them; these fossils are +the only records left, but they speak plainly +enough of the time when England and the +whole of Europe were inhabited by these +races of huge animals.</p> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_p112" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p112.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent">IX.</p> + +<p class="center no-indent"><em>The Megatherium.</em></p></figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<p>Now I must carry you away to South +America, where there are more wonders. If +I were to tell you of all the singular monsters +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span>people have found in the beds of the rivers +there it would make a book of itself. You +know what large rivers there are in that +country, and how they run for thousands of +miles through almost flat plains called +“Pampas.” Well, these rivers have often +changed their beds by cutting new channels +in the soft soil. The old dry beds of the +rivers are the burying-places of some most +curious animals, but I have not room to tell +you about more than one of them at present. +He is called the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Megatherium</i>, which means +“great beast.” His size and strength were +enormous. The largest hippopotamus looks +small by his side. His leg bones are bigger +than your body. He was more like the +sloth than any other living animal, but he +could not climb. He stood on those huge, +broad hind feet, with his strong tail as a sort +of third leg, and tore down the branches of +the trees to feed on, or even rooted them up +to get at the leaves. Standing by his skeleton +in the British Museum<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> one feels quite a +shrimp, and he looks strong enough to walk<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span> +away comfortably with an elephant on his +back.</p> + +<p>Another immense animal inhabited South +America at the time, which geologists have +called <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dinotherium</i>, or “dreadful beast.”<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> He +was a relation of the mastodon, but his tusks +were very curious. Instead of being in the +upper jaw and turned upwards they stuck out +from the lower jaw and curved downwards, +giving him a very odd appearance. He most +probably had a trunk like the mammoth or +mastodon, but perhaps not so long. All these +of course were vegetable feeders.</p> + +<p>The Tertiary period is so remarkable for +the numbers of animals more or less related +to elephants and spread all over the world, +that we might almost call it the “elephant +age,” as the oolite has been named the “reptile +age.” These elephantine animals abounded +in Europe, Asia, and North and South +America, and though none of this kind have +yet been found in Australia and Africa, I +cannot help thinking they will be discovered +in Africa at all events, for there is no doubt +that Africa and Europe were once joined.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span></p> + +<p>Australia you know possesses that animal +so unlike all others that when we first see it +we are quite astonished—the kangaroo. The +bones of a huge fossil kangaroo have been +found in Australia which must have stood +fourteen or fifteen feet high I should think +when on its hind legs, or more than twice as +large as any living now.<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> Then there were +giant birds in New Zealand (something like +the ostrich) called <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">dinornis</i> or “dreadful bird.” +These fellows had no wings, and they must +have been very much taller than the ostrich +or emu. To look at their leg bones you +would think they were the bones of oxen +instead of birds, they are so immensely thick +and strong. I do not think any of these are +living now, because they have been sought +for carefully, and none of the natives even +can say that they have seen one. But their +skeletons are common in the surface earth, +and their bones, cracked to get the marrow +out of them, are often dug out of the heaps +of refuse collected about ancient cooking +places. So that they were used for food, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span> +perhaps they have not been extinct—that is +to say, died out—more than a few hundred +years; and this is more likely because feathers +are sometimes attached to the remains, and +undecayed sinews on the feet. A human skeleton +has been found in a grave in New Zealand, +too, with the egg of one between its arms, and +little piles of pebbles are often seen among +their bones, where the stomach would be, which +the bird swallowed to digest its food, just as +many birds do now. The natives called it the +Moa, and they have some traditions about it, +and, all things considered, it is probably one +of the most recent fossil animals, and that is +the reason why I have left it to the last.<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<p>Now I dare say you will wish to know +when the animals living now took the place +of those I have described, and which have all +passed away. This cannot be told with certainty, +but you will see in the “Human Part” +that Men were living when the mammoth, +mastodon, and some other extinct animals, inhabited +the Earth, and that the reindeer, ox, +bear, wolf, hyena, &c., have survived to the +present day.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span></p> + +<p>Throughout these immense periods of +time there are gaps which we cannot yet +fill up. No one can yet say, for instance, +when the last of the mammoths disappeared, +and the first of their near relations, the Indian +and African elephants, took their place. +These are the missing parts of “the puzzle +of life” which you may perhaps one of these +days find when you come to study the subject, +and when you have learned all that is known +at present. But you may be sure of this, that +throughout all time there has been <em>progress</em>, +the lower forms of animal life have been followed +by more perfect forms as the Earth +grew older. It is true the lower forms of +life have not all died out. These imperfect +animals have run through all the ages—the +chalk builder of the Cretaceous age lives in +the ocean now—and there are many other +simple animals which lived in Old Red Sandstone +times, and are not extinct yet, but +wherever a superior kind of animal has passed +away another more perfect has taken its place. +This will be seen at once if we compare the +“Reptile Age” with the Tertiary. The great +ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, and pterodactyl<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> +are gone, but now we have the more perfect +crocodiles and birds. The mammoth is gone, +but we have the elephant. There are no +giant mosses or towering tree ferns, but our +forest trees are more perfect and more varied. +The plants which formed the coal forests and +once clothed the Earth with beauty have +dwindled away to the lowly forms which we +must stoop to examine in swamps, and these +humble plants are all the surviving relatives +of their once noble family. The lordly oaks +and elms, stronger, and even more lovely in +the sweet drapery of their foliage, and much +better fitted for our use, have succeeded all +those soft-stemmed plants which grew so fast +and were the best possible kind for forming +coal.</p> + +<p>When you are able to study what is called +comparative anatomy you will see how wonderful +the <em>plan</em> of creation is, and how beautifully +it has been worked out by its great Designer. +You will see in the bones of the reptiles of the +oolite rocks a prophecy as it were of the birds +and animals which were to come. What +could be more prophetic of animals with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span> +power of perfect flight than the leather-winged +pterodactyl, half lizard and half bird? In +some of these animals you will see bones only +half formed, and useless to that creature, which +were brought to perfection in later times, and +became the most important part of the body.</p> + +<p>It is very difficult for me to make all this +plain to you, but if you are really interested +in it you will go to a museum where the fossils +are collected, and then I am very much mistaken +if you do not find a new and strange +world opened to you.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> Numerous specimens in Case No. 7, Room V.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> Specimens of fossil fishes from various rocks in Wall-case +No. 1, Room II.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> See examples in the large Wall-cases in Rooms I., II., +and III., North Gallery.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> So called because the mountain chain of the Jura Alps +was raised during this period.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> Several specimens in Room III., and in Table-case +No. 16, Room IV.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> Wall-case No. 11 in Room III., several specimens, +imperfect.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> From the Latin word “creta,” meaning chalk.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> Ammonites in the Table-cases in Rooms V. and VI. +For enlarged models of foraminifera, see Case No. 15 in +Room V.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> Room VI., North Gallery.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> In the same room.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> Complete specimens of male and female in the middle +of Room V.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> Room VI.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> Head and tusks in Wall-case No. 2, Room VI.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> Skull in Wall-case No. 1, Room VI.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> Several specimens in Wall-case No. 11, Room III.</p> + +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span></p> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_HUMAN_PART"><em>THE HUMAN PART.</em></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">The</span> history of the human race is of course +even more interesting than that of the plants +and animals which lived so long before man +and prepared the way for him, because man +is the “crown of creation.”</p> + +<p>When first placed on this Earth he must +have been but little superior to the animals in +his outward life, though he had very different +powers within him. He could gather the +fruits of the Earth like them, and perhaps +used some of the smaller creatures as food, +but he could do little more. He scarcely +knew that he possessed the faculties which +would in time make him lord of the Earth +and the creatures inhabiting it. By slow +and painful experience he was to gather +those stores of knowledge that were to enable +him to overcome difficulties, to provide him +with shelter from the weather and protection +from dangerous animals, give increasing comfort<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span> +and power, and set him so far above all +other created things. He found plants and +animals for his use, and the dwellings in caves +and holes ready made by Nature. He could +neither build houses nor make weapons. +The first weapon he ever used probably was +a stone, which he could throw at small animals. +Then he would find out that long, sharp-pointed +sticks could be thrown like spears, +and he also found that a long pliant piece of +wood when bent would fly back, and in this +he would see a means of throwing smaller +pointed sticks like arrows, and I dare say the +discovery of the way of making a bow with +a string of twisted animal skin was a great +invention, and it certainly would be a very +valuable one. Many generations must have +passed away before he got even as far as this. +It is very easy for us, who see bows and arrows +from our childhood, to understand their use at +once: but the first human inhabitants of the +world had to find them out for themselves. +They began with <em>no</em> knowledge at all. The +beasts of the field and the fruits of the Earth +were given them, but they could <span class="allsmcap">MAKE</span> nothing.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span> +They had not even the natural covering of +hair, or wool, or feathers, which animals and +birds have, and they must first have clothed +themselves with skins of these. The wants +of their daily life were so great that they had +no time to think of anything else, but when +it became easier to satisfy these bodily wants +their minds turned to other things. They must +have seen that when the seeds and fruits of +plants fall upon the ground they grow and produce +the same kind of plant, but they did not +at first think of gathering a great number of +these seeds and sowing them in one place and +making a garden. They could wander about +and gather all they needed as they became +ripe, for there were few people then. Their +life was like that of the lilies of the field, they +“toiled not neither did they spin,” as Christ +says of the flowers, but when they began to +increase in number something more was +wanted. People began to feel something +within them which we call “intellect,” and +this must be satisfied. It was not enough to +live as if they were no nobler than the animals. +Something stirred in their minds which told +them they must not stand still.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span></p> + +<p>The Creator has made both us and the +wood and stone and metals, and has given +to us the power to make other things out of +them. Thus we are nearer to Him in power +than any of the animals who cannot change the +rough materials into other forms. We admire +the simple and really beautiful nest of the +bird, but we feel that our power is greater +when we consider our splendid buildings and +steam-engines, our ships, and our many conquests +over difficulties. But if we did not +use these greater powers of mind and hand +well, we should find them grow weaker and +weaker until we might almost lose them.</p> + +<p>You may easily suppose that there was a +time when men could not write, and there +were no books of any kind, nor any other +means of exchanging thoughts except through +spoken language. The earliest histories +about the human race always speak of men +who lived before those histories were written. +We have nothing about the earliest men +written by <em>themselves</em>. It is always someone +else who writes of them, referring to their +deeds, and to events which happened long +before.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span></p> + +<p>The art of writing has grown up gradually +and very slowly, for when the inhabitants +of the Earth became numerous they felt the +need of some way of expressing themselves to +those at a distance from them, and for making +a record of things that happened and might +be forgotten. Some of the earliest means +of writing were by pictures, like the picture +writings of Mexico<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> found by the Spanish +conquerors, and something of the same kind +is even now used by the Chinese and +Japanese. Their writing is made up partly +of pictures and partly of queer signs which +stand for the names of things, as you know if +you have ever seen one of their books. One +of the oldest forms of writing known is the +hieroglyphic, which is said to have been first +used by the Egyptians about 2,100 years +before Christ, and another is the arrow-shaped +writing of the Assyrians. These were cut on +stone and metal tablets, and most of them are +the histories of their kings. But there are +some writings on stone in India which are +thought to be older still. The Egyptians<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span> +made great progress in writing afterwards +when <em>papyrus</em> was invented.<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> This is a kind +of paper made from a reed which grows +abundantly in the river Nile, and many of +these papyrus writings are preserved in the +British Museum, as well as the writings on +stone of the Egyptians and Assyrians, and +learned men have spelled out a great deal of +the history of these nations from them, though +the language is quite different from any +spoken or written now.</p> + +<p>Picture writing was most likely one of +the earliest inventions in this way: but it +was so troublesome that signs were used to +express the same things as the picture. For +instance, suppose a history of a king was to be +written. The word “king” would be shown +by something he always wore, such as his +crown, and this sign would become more +simple until at last it might not be anything +like a crown; but it would be remembered +that the sign stood for a king all the same. +The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, <em>aleph</em>, +means an ox, and the letter is something like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span> +the shape of the head of that animal with +its horns; and another letter, called <em>shin</em>, +which in Hebrew means a tooth, is actually +very like a tooth with three points. In many +languages these signs have become so altered +that they do not now resemble the things +they at first stood for; but the first steps in the +invention of written language were certainly +made by signs representing the thing of +which the person wished to give an idea. +But you will learn all about these ancient +writings from other books.</p> + +<p>The men whose lives I am going to +describe lived long before any of these writings +were invented. They <em>spoke</em> a language +of course, though there is nothing left to show +that they knew of any kind of writing, and they +are called Pre-historic men because they lived +before there were any histories either written +by themselves or about them. But they +could draw a little, as we know from the +pictures of animals, birds, and fishes scratched +upon pieces of slate, and bone, and stone found +in their graves. Perhaps these pictures were +memorials of their great or wise men, or showed +that they were clever hunters, or fishermen.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span></p> + +<p>They knew the use of fire. Half burnt +bones and wood and ashes are plentiful in the +caves where they lived. They had none of +the means we possess for kindling fire, and +there are only two ways by which they could +have got it. They might have rubbed two +pieces of very dry wood together until the +heat lighted them, as many savages do at +the present time; or they might have struck +sparks from flint upon rotten wood and blown +the spark into a flame. We may be sure that +when once a fire was lighted they would take +care it did not go out, and if they wanted to +travel they would carry with them a piece of +smouldering wood to light the fire again. I +do not suppose that these pre-historic men +were any more civilized than the savages of +Australia and other countries, and I have often +thought when looking at these savages that +they live in almost exactly the same way as +the earliest inhabitants of Europe did. They +have the same shaped weapons and tools +made of stone, and these are fixed to the +handles in the same way. They have the +same kinds of needles and fish-hooks made +of bone, and they sew skins together with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> +threads made from the sinews of animals. +Thus we see men living now in many parts +of the world who are quite as uncivilized as +the old inhabitants of Europe, who lived +perhaps thousands of years before the Egyptians +and Assyrians.</p> + +<p>These very ancient men knew nothing +about metals. All their tools were made of +flint, or bone, or stone, and they were of the +rough shape you see in the pictures on the +next page, and it is for this reason that this +has been called the <em>Stone Age</em>. These were +chipped out with great trouble and labour, +and most of them were not even polished. +With these they had to kill animals for food, +to cut down trees, and fight against their +enemies. The skeleton of a mastodon was +found in the state of Missouri in America +about thirty-five years ago with numbers of +these flint arrow-heads underneath and near +it. Perhaps it had been shot at with arrows, +and when it died the flint points fell out of its +decaying flesh. But it is not likely that these +pre-historic men could have killed many such +large animals, unless they caught them in pits +covered over with branches of trees and earth, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span>into which they might fall, as elephants are +sometimes caught in Africa.</p> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp85" id="i_p129" style="max-width: 38.9375em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p129.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent">X.</p> + +<p class="no-indent"> +1. <em>Flint Arrow-head.</em><br> +2. <em>Stone Axe in handle.</em><br> +3. <em>Flint Knife.</em><br> +4. <em>Bone Harpoon.</em><br> +5. <em>Bone Needles.</em><br> +6. <em>Sceptre made of Horn.</em><br> +7. <em>Marrow Spoon.</em><br> +</p> +</figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<p>Nothing shows us so well the immense +time which must have passed since the men +of the stone age lived as that these flint +weapons and tools are found nearly all over +the world, in Northern Europe, including our +own country, in Spain, France, Italy, Greece, +Palestine, Africa, Japan, America, &c.; and +yet none of the present inhabitants of these +countries have any history or tradition of the +time when they were used. Metals are now +used instead, and there is no record of the +time when flint only was known. We are +quite certain however that the stone age men +lived at the same period as the great animals +of the Tertiary age, the mammoth, the mastodon, +the woolly rhinoceros, the Irish stag, +the cave bear, and others you have read of +in former chapters, because flint and stone +weapons are found in the same beds of earth +with these animals.<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> + +<p>Suppose one of the present Indian or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span> +African elephants with his rider were to fall +into a river and they were to sink to the +bottom and be covered with mud, and suppose +his rider had in his pocket some of our sovereigns. +If that elephant should be accidentally +dug up thousands of years to come, when most +likely all elephants will have died off the earth, +people would know for certain, from the date +and figure of the Queen on the money, that +elephants were used by the English in this +reign, even if all our books and monuments +had perished, and a new people inhabited the +Earth. Something of the same kind has happened +to prove to us that the stone-age men +saw the mammoth alive. In one of their +graves there is a slice of a mammoth’s great +back tooth with a beautiful picture of the +animal, with his bristly hair, scratched on the +ivory, and there are also many of the flint +and stone weapons which show that the +skeleton in the grave was that of a primeval +man. This little picture tells its tale +more faithfully than any history. It is all +the more certain to tell it truly because it was +never <em>meant</em> to tell one. When that man +was buried with this sign that he was a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span> +mighty hunter of the mammoth, or an artist, +no one could imagine that he would ever be +dug up to show us, who come so long afterwards, +that he saw the mammoth roaming +through the forests of the far away past. +There can be no doubt that it is a very good +drawing of the mammoth with its long turned-up +tusks, like those in the picture at the +beginning of the book.</p> + +<p>In another place a picture of a fight +between some reindeer scratched upon a +piece of slate has been found. This was in a +cave in France, and it, as well as the numbers +of bones of these animals in the caves, shows +that the reindeer, which now only inhabits the +Arctic regions, must have been common then +in France. You will see drawings of both +these on page <a href="#i_p135-1">135</a>.</p> + +<p>These primeval people built no houses. +They lived in natural caves, and scattered the +remains of their food about the floor, so that +we know what they ate. Among the animals +they used for food were the horse, the reindeer, +the ox, the cave-lion and bear, the wolf, the +hyena, the goat, the hare and several others, +besides salmon and other fish. They were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span> +very fond of the marrow of the bones, which +they cracked with stone hammers, and had +little spoons made of bone with which to pick +it out.</p> + +<p>They had places for making flint weapons +too. At Cissbury Camp, near Worthing, +there is one of their old workshops. There +are galleries dug into the chalk where they +got the flints, and there are thousands of chips +of flint lying about, with half finished arrow-heads, +and some of the tools they dug with. +They had no spades or pickaxes; but they +used the broad, flat, shoulder-blade bone of +the ox as a spade, and the sharp brow antler +of a deer’s horn for a pickaxe, to get these +flints out with. It must have been very hard +work for them, because bone spades and horn +pickaxes would soon wear out, and would not +be nearly so useful as ours made of iron.</p> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_p135-1" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p135-1.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent">XI.</p> + +<p class="center no-indent"><em>Picture of Mammoth Scratched on Ivory.</em></p> +</figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_p135-2" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p135-2.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent"><em>Fight between Reindeer Scratched on Slate.</em></p></figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<p>It is difficult to be certain how these stone-age +people cooked their food. Of course +they could have roasted it, and the half-burnt +bones in some caves show that they +did so; but in some caves in France there is +not a single burnt bone to be found. In +these French cave dwellings, too, there are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span>no pieces of earthenware, as there are in +some others; so that the people could not +have boiled it, unless they had wooden +pots and dropped red-hot stones into the +water in them until the meat got boiled, as +some savages do now. Or they might have +cooked it under the hot ashes.</p> + +<p>The people who used earthenware must +have made more progress. It is easy to +understand how they made this useful discovery. +Suppose they had lighted a fire +upon a damp clay soil, the earth would get +baked hard and crack off in pieces, and they +would see that this soil could be worked in +the hands while soft into the shape of pans +and dishes, which could be dried quite hard +in the sun or baked in hot ashes, just as +boys make clay marbles now. They could +live much more comfortably even with these +rough earthenware things, and cook their +food more conveniently; but they still used +the stone and flint tools and weapons, and +iron was still unknown to them.</p> + +<p>The people of whom I have been speaking +are principally the men of the First Stone +Age, when the art of polishing tools and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span> +weapons had not been found out. They +simply chipped these things out of the flints +and left them very rough; but the men of the +next, or Second Stone Age, made great improvements. +They ground their flint knives +and axes with other stones, and rubbed them +down to sharp edges and points, so that they +must have been much more useful for killing +and cutting up the animals they hunted. All +their bone and horn tools are much better +made, and sometimes ornamented prettily +with marks cut upon them. The Second +Stone Age men evidently wore clothing, +most probably made of the skins of animals—for +the long strips of bone with a hole +at one end which you see in the picture +could not have been used for any other +purpose, except to draw threads through +something. The threads were very likely +either the sinews of animals pulled out of the +flesh, or thin strips of their skins, or perhaps +the inner bark of a tree twisted into a kind +of string. In the colder parts of Europe +and America these ancient people would +need some protection from the weather. +How then did the people of the First Stone<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span> +Age manage, if they had no bone needles, +as I think they had not, with which to make +clothing? They must have wrapped themselves +in the skins just as they came from +the backs of the animals.</p> + +<p>It is not easy to be always sure, when we +find a cave and all these relics of pre-historic +man, whether the inhabitants belonged to the +First or the Second Stone Age. Sometimes +there are signs of polishing and grinding on +the tools, and then we may suppose that men +were gradually getting more skilful, until they +finished off all their weapons beautifully. +But there is such a very great difference in +the perfection of these useful articles found +in some places and those found in others +that we have no doubt men made slow progress, +from the rough or First Stone Age, +to the polished or Second Stone Age.</p> + +<p>In neither the first nor second stone period +had men yet learned to build any kind of +habitations. They lived in caves simply, like +wild animals. On the banks of the river +Vezère in France, which has cut its way +deeply through the rock, there are some +celebrated caves once inhabited by pre-historic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span> +men, and some of them are very large. +They were most likely hollowed out in the +cliff by water, and many generations of men +lived here. In one of them four human +skeletons were found, with plenty of stone and +flint tools, besides the bones of the mammoth +and lion, reindeer and other animals. The +mammoth then as well as the reindeer lived +at that time in the valley of the Vezère. +There is no doubt that these caves were inhabited +at separate times by people who used +only the roughest and simplest stone tools, +and by others who had made some progress +and could polish their tools and make them of +bone and could scratch pictures of animals +upon slips of bone and slate. It is curious that +all these drawings are side-view drawings, and +they are only outlines, just like the drawings +of children now, and the Esquimaux of the +Arctic regions; because these people, although +they were grown up, had not discovered the +art of drawing in perspective and shading +the figures. Still the pictures are wonderfully +true to nature, and must have been copied +from living animals. There is no earthenware +in any of these caves, so that the useful art of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span> +making pottery had not been discovered, +neither is there any in the caves in Switzerland, +where the bones of the mammoth, lion, +and rhinoceros are also found, and the tools +and weapons are much the same as those in +the French caverns. It is impossible to say +whether the cave-dwellers of France and +Switzerland lived at the same time exactly, +but they were in about the same condition of +civilization, and they must both have been +quite familiar with the appearance of the +mammoth and lion, and other animals, which +are not mentioned in any history, however +old it may be, as inhabitants of these +countries.</p> + +<p>A discovery has lately been made in +France of a large cavern near Belfort, in the +limestone rock, which has been covered up +for ages. The quarrymen while cutting out +the stone came upon a small opening leading +into a very large cave, in which there was +a great quantity of human skeletons and +bones and some beautifully ornamented vases, +polished stone bracelets, and a mat of plaited +rushes. To these people, then, the arts of +pottery and weaving were known, and this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span> +was probably one of their burying-places. +They were evidently much more civilized +than the ancient people of the valley of the +Vezère; but this cave must also be of a +great age, and its inhabitants have left no +record of their history in any kind of +writing.</p> + +<p>Quite lately, too, we have learned something +of the early races of man in Colorado. +Many of the caves in that country have been +altered and made more like regular houses, +and some appear even to have been cut +out of the rock entirely by human hands; +and in the plains there are ruins of large +cities.</p> + +<p>Though still in the stone age, for all the +weapons yet found among these ruins are +of stone, the Colorado people were more +civilized than the stone-age people of the +Vezère caverns, because they had begun to +build and knew how to make pottery. It is +strange, too, that the present natives of Colorado +are not so civilized as the early people, +and if they have descended from them they +have not improved, but rather the contrary. +There are other caverns in various parts of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span> +the world containing these curious relics of +races long since passed away, but some of +the principal have been mentioned, enough +perhaps to interest you and show you that +men were living in Europe together with the +large animals of the Tertiary period, and that +they had made very little progress in the arts +and manufactures, and had not even begun to +build the roughest houses.</p> + +<p>In many parts of the world even now +there are savages nearly as uncivilized as the +cave-dwellers of Europe were then. When +Captain Cook visited New Zealand, more +than a hundred years ago, the natives there +had nothing but stone and bone tools, very like +those found in the European caverns, and the +inhabitants of some of the islands in the Pacific +Ocean still use stone axes and hammers +and bone needles.<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Captain Moresby, too, +who made a voyage to the south-east coast +of New Guinea a few years ago, tells us +that the natives have beautiful stone axes, +but they were so ignorant of the use of iron +that they refused to give him one of their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span> +stone axes for a new iron hatchet which he +offered them. No doubt the stone weapon +cost a great deal of labour and patience to +make, and perhaps the iron one was made by +machinery in a few minutes, and was really +more useful, but the native had proved his +own axe and knew nothing of the iron one, +so that it is no wonder that he refused it. +But what a history these two axes tell—the +stone and the iron! The stone shows us +man in his childhood, and the iron man in his +manhood, and what an immensely long time +there is between the two. How much +thought, and trial and failure, and patience +and industry, were spent by mankind before +the stone axe grew into the iron!</p> + +<p>In Europe man has long since grown out +of his childhood, but in many parts of the +world he is no more civilized than the men +who saw the mammoth crashing through the +forests of England and France, and heard +the lion roar at night on the banks of +the Thames, and watched the hippopotamus +swimming across the river at Westminster. +It is most likely, then, that Europe and parts +of Asia and America were inhabited long<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span> +before those places where men are even now +in the stone age—such as the islands in the +Pacific Ocean, New Guinea, Australia, &c.</p> + +<p>What a life the pre-historic men of Europe +must have lived! Here they were surrounded +by huge dangerous animals, and had no +means of protecting themselves against them +but with these rough stone weapons. Where +London now stands with its miles of streets +and busy life there was a mighty forest, and +the mammoth and rhinoceros tramped through +it by day, and the lion and hyena hunted +the deer at night. When the pre-historic men +came down to the banks of the Thames in +the day-time to spear salmon, they saw the +hippopotamus plunging about in the water +among the rushes, sweeping the long grass +into their wide mouths, and swimming from +side to side with their young ones perched +upon their necks. It must have been a +grand sight, but a fearful one too, and it is +no wonder that men thought the caves the +only safe places to live in.</p> + +<p>Sometimes in India the elephants come +into the villages at night and throw down +wooden houses and kill people, and they are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span> +very much feared, so that we can suppose +how much more terrible the mammoth might +have been to the uncivilized cave-dwellers. +If they shot at him with the flint-pointed +arrows they could scarcely hurt him, and it +is more likely that they got out of his way as +quickly as possible whenever they met him, +and took good care never to interfere with +the lion and rhinoceros.</p> + + +<h3>THE LAKE-DWELLERS.</h3> + +<p>Among the earliest inhabitants of Europe, +there were some who did not live in caves; +but I think they must have lived a long time +after the cave-dwellers, when they built their +houses out in the middle of the lakes. +These houses were built in a very curious +way, and the remains of them have been discovered +in Ireland and Scotland, Switzerland +and other countries. The people carried +quantities of stones, and earth, and sticks out +into the lake and let them sink to the bottom. +Then when they had piled up enough to make +an island, they laid wood across and set up +their huts, and lived there surrounded by water. +These were very poor houses of course; but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span>when men had begun to build for themselves, +they would find how much more comfortable +they were than in damp and dark caves. +They must have had some kind of boats or +canoes, or they could not have passed between +their lake-dwellings and the land unless they +swam to them; but I do not think that any of +these boats have been found. Perhaps they +were made of the dried skins of animals +stretched over wooden frames, as I have seen +savages make boats.</p> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_p148" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p148.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent">XII.</p> + +<p class="center no-indent"><em>Lake-Dwellings.</em></p></figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<p>There was another way of building these +lake-dwellings, and a better way too. Long +poles were driven into the earth at the bottom +of the water, and when the builders had got +enough of these together they laid other +poles across them, and built their huts on +this floor above the water. People are living +now in much the same way near the Orinoco +river in South America, in New Guinea, and in +Central Africa.<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> The land all round is covered +with water from the overflowing of the rivers, +which are very large, and the huts are built up +on these poles out of the way of it. The lake-dwellers +of Europe would thus be safer in their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span> +houses from dangerous animals than if they +were on land. They were more civilized than +the cave-dwellers, but still a great many of their +tools and weapons were of stone and bone; +yet we know that they had made wonderful +progress, because they had learned to make +pottery, and even to weave cloths out of hemp +or flax. They had most likely begun to plant +and cultivate the land, too, for corn is found +about these dwellings, and the bones of +domestic animals are very numerous. They +had left the cave-dwellers a long way behind +in many things, in wearing artificial clothing, +in cultivating the land, and in keeping domestic +animals; but their implements—that +is, their weapons and tools—were not much +improved, and were very much like those of +the cave-dwellers, though better finished and +more polished than some of theirs.</p> + +<p>But not all the articles used by the lake +people were of stone and bone. Some of those +who lived in the Swiss lakes had ornaments, +such as bracelets and hair-pins, made of the +metal called bronze, and no doubt they made +spear-heads of the metal, because they would +look to usefulness before ornament.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span></p> + +<p>Now you see how these people seem to +have lived: first the old stone age men, then +those of the newer or polished stone age, and +lastly the lake-dwellers. The people of both +the first and second stone ages certainly saw +the mammoth, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, lion, +and reindeer alive in France, Switzerland, and +England; but when the lake-dwellings were +built, all these animals, except perhaps the +reindeer, had died, and most of the animals +were the same as they are now. None of these +people have left us any kind of history whatever, +except that which their simple works tell +us, their flint and bone weapons, and their +dwellings. They have set up no gigantic +monuments like the Egyptians or the Druids. +They thought of no men to come after them +who would take an interest in their ways; but +it is fortunate that what they did make was +of such lasting materials as stone and flint, or +we should have known next to nothing about +their lives.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to say how many thousands +of years may have passed before the +rough stone weapons were replaced by the +polished stone, or the cave was exchanged<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span> +for an artificial house in a lake; but you must +feel in your minds that the time was immense, +and the more we study the ways and works +of pre-historic man, the more certain we +become that it is longer than the whole time +that has passed since men first began to use +any kind of writing.</p> + + +<h3>KITCHEN-MIDDENS.</h3> + +<p>I dare say you have seen untidy people +in country places, and even in towns, throw +oyster-shells and broken dishes and dirt outside +their doors until quite a heap is formed. +This is called a “midden,” and the habit of +doing this is a very old one. We learn just +a little more of the history of man from great +middens made by ancient people in several +countries. They were first discovered in +Denmark, and since then they have been +found in Scotland, Brazil, and New Zealand. +They are sometimes very large, and must +have been used by the whole village as places +to throw the refuse of their cookery in. When +these heaps have been dug into all sorts of +things have been found in them—the shells of +oysters and mussels, bones of fishes, birds, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span> +animals, pieces of broken earthenware, little +ornaments, stone axes, arrow-heads, wood +ashes, burnt bones, and other odds and ends. +In Brazil many of these kitchen-middens are +on the sea shore, and it seems as if the people +who made them came there to live on the +shell-fish, for the shells are the same as those +living in the sea close by now. In New +Zealand the middens contain many of the +bones of the Moa, which was described in +“The Animal Part,” and has now perished, and +these are cracked in such a manner that the +people evidently wanted to get at the marrow +in them, and it shows too that this gigantic +bird was common in New Zealand then. +The midden makers seemed to have lived in +the open air, and wherever food was most +plentiful. Perhaps they built huts of the +bark and small branches of trees like the +Australian savages, but such houses would +not last. We only know of the life of the +midden makers from these heaps. Their +weapons are of the same kind and pattern as +those of the Second Stone Age, but they had +learned to make rough earthenware dishes +and basins, and some pieces of a woven<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span> +material have been found, and pieces of wood +and bone worked with a little skill. Whether +they lived after or before the lake-dwellers I +cannot say, but I should think about the +same time.</p> + +<p>These pre-historic people, nevertheless, +were not always thinking of making things +which were useful. They thought too of +making ornaments, many of which are found +in their dwellings and graves. Like ourselves, +they had an idea that little trinkets improved +their appearance. In one grave a skeleton +was found with a small pile of shells under +its neck, which no doubt had been strung +together as a necklace, and when the string +rotted the shells parted and fell in a heap under +the head, to be a memorial of that ancient man +or woman’s possession of the same feelings as +our own. Various little articles, too, found +about the lake-dwellings show that people +liked to decorate themselves.</p> + +<p>We shall never know what language they +spoke, but they must have been able to tell +their thoughts to one another. It was most +likely a simple language with few words as +names for things and a simple grammar, like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span> +the language of savages, because they had +not so many things to talk about as we have. +The names of animals would perhaps be +imitated from their cries and the noises they +made. These cries would be among the most +familiar sounds to them, and when they +wished to speak of some animal the simplest +way would be to imitate the noise it generally +makes. If we think of our own language, we +shall see how very likely this was. We have +many such words. We teach our children the +names of animals by the sounds they make. +The dog we call “bow-wow,” the cow “moo-moo,” +the duck “quack-quack,” and many +other names of the same kind which you will +think of yourselves. At the present time +even the name by which the Egyptians call +the donkey has almost exactly the same +sound as our “hee-haw.” This trick of +doubling or repeating the sound, too, is very +common among savages, who are as far behind +us as the pre-historic men were. The +natives of Australia give these double names +to a great many animals and things, and +sometimes do the same with English words. +They call fish “ningy-ningy,” and a certain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span> +tree the “bunya-bunya,” and their language +is full of such words. But it is not only the +names of things which have been made in +this way. Verbs as well as nouns have grown +up thus. When we whisper to one another, +that word imitates the low sound we make.</p> + +<p>I shall leave you to trace the natural origin +of the following words, and think how much of +man’s spoken language is taken from common +sounds. Thus we have roar, shriek, whistle, +hiss, sigh, sing, ring, thump, bump, clash, +clang, bang, twang, clap, smack, slap, smash, +swish, swirl, gong, thong, boom, bellow, +batter, chatter, clatter, snap, snip, whip, +gurgle, shiver, quiver, rumble, roll, rattle, +prattle, and a hundred more. Words thus +derived from familiar sounds abound in all +languages, and they, no doubt, are the easy +steps by which men climbed to a more complicated +speech. The earliest men must +have been obliged to pay great attention to +animals and birds, which have voices of their +own; for to hunt and catch them was the +principal occupation of their lives; therefore, +when speaking of them to one another, they +would naturally call them by names resembling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span> +the sounds they made. Our verbs +“to squeak” and “to squeal” are certainly +taken from the cries of animals when in pain; +but I have said enough to show you how +language grew up among pre-historic people.</p> + +<p>We do not know for certain that they had +any musical instruments, but they would hear +the sighing of the wind among the trees, and +it would almost certainly be found out that +blowing down a hollow stick or reed, open at +one end and closed at the other, would make +a whistle; but if they used any of these +things they would not last like the stone tools, +and have decayed away; and we do know +that they had begun to draw upon such imperishable +materials as bone and slate.</p> + +<p>There is a very interesting specimen of a +human fossil in the British Museum, which +you ought to go and see, if you can; but in +case you are not able there is a drawing of it +on page <a href="#i_p159">159</a>.<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> This specimen was brought +to England about the year 1814. Others +like it have since been found imbedded in the +hard breccia limestone rock at the same place +on the shore of the island of Guadaloupe.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span> +The skeleton most likely was that of a +woman, from the shape of some of the bones, +and most probably was of the race of Caribs, +of whom there are none living now. Perhaps +this was originally a burying place of the +ancient inhabitants of the island, and when +the sea washed the small broken pieces of +shells and corals over it (all of which contain +lime) they hardened into breccia rock, and +the skeleton became completely imbedded in +it. This must have taken a very long time, +at all events; but I do not think the Guadaloupe +fossils are as old as the people who +lived in the caves in France. Some little +ornaments and articles of human workmanship +are found with these skeletons, which +show that the people to whom they belonged +were still in the Stone Age. There is very +little to judge from when we wish to get some +idea of the time these fossils have been in +this breccia: but at this particular place +the rock is formed pretty quickly, as we can +see; and it is quite likely that these skeletons +were buried there long after the mammoth, +rhinoceros, and hippopotamus died out of +Europe. However, they are the most complete +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span>specimens we have of any fossil human +beings. In looking at the drawing you will +see the leg bones and hips, part of the backbone, +the ribs of one side, and an arm bone; +but you see no skull, because the bones of +the skull are very thin, and have become +crushed down into the limestone. In one of +these fossils, which they have in Paris, taken +from near the same place, the bones are +much more distinct, and part of the lower +jaw with some teeth in it can be seen. These +fossil men no doubt lived before the period +of written human history began; but they +are not considered to be at all the oldest of +pre-historic men.</p> +<br> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp85" id="i_p159" style="max-width: 39.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p159.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center no-indent">XIII.</p> + +<p class="center no-indent"><em>The Guadaloupe Human Fossil.</em></p></figcaption> +</figure> +<br> + +<p>Two periods in the life of mankind followed +all these long-lost and forgotten people, +and they are called the Bronze Age and the +Iron Age; but now <em>history</em> comes in, and +there are plenty of old records and books to +tell you about these. Bronze is a mixed +metal of copper and tin, and it was used by +the oldest nations who have left any histories—the +Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. +It was better than stone because it +could be made sharper and would not chip,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span> +and swords and armour, vases, axes, hammers, +needles, &c., were made of it.<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> + +<p>The Stone Age is beyond all history, the +Bronze begins with it, and the Iron Age +began at some distant time before the dawn of +authentic history. Thus we are told, in Genesis +iv. 22, that Tubal Cain taught people to make +it. It was used also by the Egyptians for perhaps +2,000 years before the Christian era; +but the real Iron Age is that in which we are +living now. We can, indeed, make all metals +much better than any of the older nations.</p> + +<p>But there is a wide gap between the time +when people left off using stone and discovered +bronze and iron; and if one of the +Druids could come to life he might help us to +fill it up, because those old British priests had +many secrets, which they told to one another +from generation to generation.</p> + +<p>If the Spanish conquerors had not destroyed +the civilization of Mexico and Peru, we +might know something of the discovery of +the metals there, and the people of India and +China must have used them long ago; but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span> +the first use of metal in any country where it +was found out would most likely be before +the people had begun to put their language +into any kind of writing, so that the time would +be forgotten among the many scraps of lost +knowledge which we have tried to collect from +the remains of the industry of pre-historic man.</p> + +<p>We have seen how much these ancient +people differed from us in their civilization, +and how far they were behind us in everything; +but we must not suppose that they +were very different in bodily size and shape. +Some of their skulls might have belonged to +a philosopher, or they might have contained +the thoughtless brains of a savage. The +skulls from the Cromagnon and Engis caves +are quite equal in size and shape to those of +several uncivilized, and even of some civilized +races of the present time, and there are +people in all large cities whose heads are not +better formed. Though the outward signs of +their civilization then were so different from +ours, it is not certain that their mental +capacity was much less.</p> + +<p>A race possessing considerable civilization +may, we know, pass away, as the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span> +Assyrians and the Pyramid builders have. +In one of the Pacific islands—Easter Island—a +thousand miles from the nearest land, +there are hundreds of carved images of +stone, fifty or sixty feet high, and weighing +perhaps a hundred tons each. The people +who made these must have been very +numerous and must have had considerable +skill. Yet they have passed away. The arts +of Nineveh and Babylon have only lately +become known, so that, you see, the works of +a race may easily become hidden from us +who follow. Quite lately, too, the works of a +partly civilized people have been discovered +in Ohio in America. There are there +hundreds of mounds and earth embankments +forming fortified camps. Some of +them are several miles round, and they could +only have been made by a very numerous +and intelligent people who knew something +about geometry; for the circles, squares, and +angles of these earthworks are quite as +correct as we could make them. Among the +multitude of things found here are copper +tools made by hammering, ornamental +pottery, silver beads, plates of mica with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span> +scrolls and designs engraved on them, and +carefully carved pieces of stone. These +carvings are most curious and excellently +finished. They represent human heads and +many animals, such as the bear, otter, wolf, +beaver, raccoon, frog, rattlesnake, heron, crow, +&c. A people, then, who could do these +things and took pleasure in doing them must +have possessed great intelligence and a +knowledge of things far beyond a simple +state. They even had religious ideas, such +as they were, for they had places for sacrifice. +All their works are now overgrown by forests, +but it is impossible to mistake them; yet the +native Indians of Ohio living now have no +idea that such a people lived in their country +before them, and no tradition at all about a +people whose civilization was so far superior +to their own.</p> + +<p>We may come nearer to our own times, +and look at the Assyrians and Egyptians. +Until quite recently nothing was known about +the Assyrians except what could be learned +from the few references made to them in +Scripture and some ancient writers; but Mr. +Layard dug up their cities, and found that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span> +they possessed the arts of building, sculpture, +working in metals, and a written language. +All this was buried under the sand of a +desert! Then there is the great Pyramid +of Egypt, built in a way that we could not +surpass, and with much knowledge of geometry +and other sciences.<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> The men who +designed and constructed these works could +not have lived among a half-barbarous people; +and as these are the highest works of the +people, how much there must have been +that went before, of which there is no trace +now, when Assyria and Egypt were in <em>their</em> +age of stone axes and flint arrow-heads.</p> + +<p>I do not think that the Stone-Age men +of Europe were nearly so civilized. At all +events, they have not left any such imperishable +monuments as the gigantic images of +Easter Island, the earthworks of the Ohio +people, or the sculptures, writings, and buildings +of the Assyrians and Egyptians; but they +might have been more civilized than they +seem to have been from their simple weapons +and tools. They might have made many<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span> +things which were perishable, and have been +destroyed by time—things which would have +given us a higher belief in their intelligence +and civilization.</p> + +<p>The past history of the human race may +be compared to the rise and fall of the tide. +Wave after wave has risen higher and higher +on the everlasting shore of Time, and when +the tide was at its highest it has fallen again +slowly, to rise again and again in the same +way through many ages. We know that +man may rise slowly from a simple condition +to much civilization and power, and may +again sink back almost to barbarism, as has +been the case with the people of whom we +have been speaking, and then again a new +civilization may grow up. It is possible that +all now savage nations are the sinking descendants +of some, in comparison, once civilized +people. Modern nations are taking up +the ground of savages all over the world, and +soon there will be no trace of these simple +people. Thus it may have been with mankind +throughout all the time during which +they have occupied the earth, and so it may +be perhaps again.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> A fine Mexican MS. on diapered cloth, with figures and +mystical signs, has lately been added to the MS. department +of the British Museum.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> Some fine examples of papyrus writings on the North-west +Staircase, Upper Floor.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> British Antiquities Room, upper floor, Middle and Upper +Shelf-cases, Nos. 1, 2, and 5-12, flint and stone implements. +Table-case B, horn implements from French caves and Swiss +lake-dwellings.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> Examples of stone implements of New Zealanders in +Ethnographical Room, Cases No. 45-48, upper floor.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> In Lake Mohrya. <em>Across Africa</em>, by V. L. Cameron.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> At the end of Room VI., opposite the door, North Gallery.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> See examples in the Bronze Room, upper floor, British +Museum.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> Built of nummulitic limestone, composed of shells of +foraminifera. See Case 15, Room V., North Gallery.</p> + +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span></p> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONCLUSION"><em>CONCLUSION.</em></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">I have</span> now put “The Puzzle of Life” together +as well as I can, and there is not much +more to say. You must do the rest for yourselves +by going to the Museums, where all +the pieces are collected, and seeing them with +your own eyes. When you stand before +these silent witnesses to the great age of our +Earth, and all that is on it, you will feel how +wonderful the story they tell is. They have +no words to speak to you, but there is a power +in your own minds which interprets their history +through your own thoughts. They are +only lumps of rock and lifeless bones, but +they seem to say to you, “We are living again +now, because we are teaching you a lesson +which the great Builder of this Universe +wishes you to learn from us. There is not a +stone or fossil among us but it has its tale +to tell—a tale of time and tide, and long past<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span> +ages, and innumerable changes, and a life that +was, and progress from a lower to a higher +existence. We have obeyed the same eternal +laws of one Creator from the beginning, +as all things will to the end of time. We +have opened the great Book of Nature from +the first page of the ‘life-dawn animal’ to the +last, on which the hand of the Almighty has +written the name of Man—his most perfect +work. We, you, and all things which have +lived and will live, have bodies made of +particles which will be returned to the Earth, +no single atom of which has been destroyed +since the first, but has been fashioned over +and over again into innumerable forms of +tree and flower, of gossamer-winged insect +and towering mammoth, throughout the long +ages in which our Globe has known day and +night, cold and heat, summer and winter.”</p> + +<p>There is nothing sad, if we look at it +rightly, in this constant succession of life and +death. It is</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent20">A moulding</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of forms, and a wondrous birth,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And a growing and fair unfolding</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of life from life, and life from death.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">For death, a mother benign,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Transformeth but destroyeth not,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And the new thing fair of the old is wrought.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="right fs90"> +<span class="smcap">G. F. Armstrong.</span><br> +</p> + +<p>Is it not worth while then to listen to these +stories of the Earth—to spell them out for +ourselves? They are written everywhere,—in +the mountains and valleys, the rivers and +seas, on the hard faces of granite cliffs, on the +rounded pebbles of the sea beach, and even +in the finest dust of the roads. We have not +to go far to hear them: every foot-step on +the ground covers a chapter great or small in +the universal history, and the stone walls of +our houses could speak with ten thousand +tongues of all they witnessed in their long +life on the floor of an ancient ocean.</p> + +<p>We can scarcely have a more pleasant +occupation and greater interest than in searching +for and putting together the pieces of this +wonderful and beautiful puzzle, and in doing +our utmost to “Summon from the shadowy +Past the forms that once have been.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 15%"> +<img src="images/f011.jpg" alt=""> +</div> + +<ul class="index"> +<li class="ifrst">Age of bronze, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">of iron, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">of reptiles, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Aleph, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Amber, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ammonites, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#i_p097">97</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Animal Part, the, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">animals of coal period, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ants, white, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Arctic climate, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">expedition, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Archæopteryx, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#i_p093-1">93</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Australian savages, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Babylon and Nineveh, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bear, grisly, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Beginning of life, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bird forms, earliest, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">reptiles, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Blacklead, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Boulders carried by ice, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bogwood, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Boiling springs, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bronze, age of, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">implements in British Museum, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Brighton Downs, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Burning mountains, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Calamites, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cañons of Colorado, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Caves of Engis and Cromagnon, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">near Belfort and of Switzerland, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">of the Vezère, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cetiosaurus, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Chalk, nature of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">pits, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">ammonites and foraminifera in, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">period, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">under the ocean, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Challenger” expedition, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Changes have been gradual, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cissbury camp, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Clay, London, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">and mud, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Climate, Arctic, and of coal formations, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Club-mosses, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Clothing, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Coal beds, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Arctic regions, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">plants of the, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">is fossil wood, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">is sunlight compressed, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Colorado, the people in, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Compressed plants, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conclusion, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cookery, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Corals, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Creation, the plan of, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cretaceous period, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cromagnon and Engis, caves of, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Dawn of life, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">plant, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Denudation, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dinornis, specimens of, in British Museum, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dinosaurus, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dinotherium, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Drawings, pre-historic, <a href="#i_p135-1">135</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dwellings and food of men, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Early histories, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">plant life, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Earth, early history of, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">interior of, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">intense heat of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">climate of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">not yet fit for man, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span>‘foraminifera earth’, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Earthquakes, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Earthworks of Ohio, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Easter island monuments, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Egypt, monuments of, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Eodendron, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Eophyton, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Eozöon, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">First weapons, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fish-lizards, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fishes, fossil, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Flint, origin of, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in chalk, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">weapons, where found, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">tool manufactory, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Foraminifera, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">‘foraminifera earth’, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">drawings of, <a href="#i_p097">97</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">specimens of, in British Museum, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Forests under the sea, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fossil, derivation of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">plants, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">sunlight, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">footprints, <a href="#i_p083">83</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">human, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#i_p159">159</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Food and dwellings, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Footprints, fossil, <a href="#i_p083">83</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Flying reptiles, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Geological part, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Geology, derivation of, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Geysers, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gigantic animals, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">birds, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Glaciers and icebergs, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Granite, raised, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">appearance of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gravel, &c., <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Great Irish Stag, drawing, &c., of, <a href="#i_p108">108</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Guadaloupe human fossil, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Heat of the Earth, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hebrew letters, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hesperornis, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hippopotamus in England, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Histories, early, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Human part, the, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">fossils, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Ice age, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">more than one, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Icebergs and glaciers, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ichthyornis, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ichthyosaurus, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Implements, flint and stone, in British Museum, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">bronze, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li> + +<li class="indx">India, elephants in, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Insects in coal forests, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Irish stag, <a href="#i_p108">107</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Islands appear and disappear, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Jet, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jurassic age, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Kangaroo, fossil, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kitchen-middens, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Labyrinthodon, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lake-dwellers, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">dwellings in Europe, Africa, Asia, and New Guinea, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Language, origin of; and of pre-historic man, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Laurentian rocks, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lena river, mammoth found, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Life, the dawn of, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">‘life-dawn animal’, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lignite, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lion, English sabre-toothed, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Mammalia, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mammoth, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102-3</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">bones of, in Siberia, Asia, North America, &c.;</li> +<li class="isub1">drawing of, on ivory, <a href="#i_p135-1">135</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Essex, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">skull of, in British Museum, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Man and his works, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">his earliest inventions, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">mammoth, mastodon, reindeer, &c., contemporary with, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">pre-historic, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">dwellings and food of, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Marsupial animal, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mastodon, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Europe, America, India, &c., <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">in Missouri, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">skeleton of, in British Museum, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Megalosaurus, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Megatherium, in South America, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">drawing of, 112;</li> +<li class="isub1">account of, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">skeleton of, in British Museum, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mexican writings, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Middens, kitchen, <a href="#Page_152">152-4</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">makers, life of, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Moa, <a href="#Page_115">115-16</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Monkeys, fossil, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span>at Gibraltar, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Monuments of Easter Island, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">of Egypt and Assyria, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mountains, burning, and covered with snow, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Moresby, Captain, in New Guinea, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">New Guinea, stone age of, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> + +<li class="indx">New Zealand dinornis, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">moa, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">stone age of, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nineveh and Babylon, ruins, &c., of, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Norway, raised terraces of, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Ohio, earthworks of, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Oolite, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Origin of language, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Papyrus writings, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Paris, built of shells, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Parts, the, are called fossils, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Past life, the signs of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Peat, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Plan of creation, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Plants of coal forests, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Plesiosaurus, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pottery, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pre-historic art, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">drawings, <a href="#i_p135-1">135</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">man, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">weapons and tools, <a href="#i_p129">129</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pterodactyl, derivation of, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">description of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Puzzle, the framework of, <a href="#Page_1">1-16</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">parts of, where found, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pyrenees, when raised, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Rain-drops, marks of, <a href="#i_p083">84</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Reindeer, drawing of, on slate, <a href="#i_p135-1">135</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Reptiles, the age of, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rhinoceros in England, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rocks, raising of the;</li> +<li class="isub1">how placed, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">carried by ice, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Sandstone, formation of, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Old Red, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">New Red, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Slate hardened mud, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sponges, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Star-fish, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Stone age, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">first stone age, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">second, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">of New Guinea and New Zealand, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Subsidence, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Succession of formations, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sucklers, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sunlight, fossil, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Tertiary period, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Time, the work of, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tools, polished and rough, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Trilobite, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Upheaval and depression, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Vegetable part, the, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Vertebrata, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Volcanoes and earthquakes, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + +<li class="ifrst">Water, a powerful tool of Nature, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">thrown out of the earth, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Weapons, early, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">and tools, where found, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Whales, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + +<li class="indx">World, early history of the, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">size and shape, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">materials of, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">heat of, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Work, the, of time, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Writing, origin of, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">Mexican, Egyptian, and Assyrian, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">on papyrus, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</li> +<li class="isub1">by signs, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> +</ul> +<br> +<br> + +<p class="center no-indent fs80 wsp lh"> +LONDON: PRINTED BY<br> +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE<br> +AND PARLIAMENT STREET<br> +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="OPINIONS_OF_THE_PRESS">OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 15%"> +<img src="images/f011.jpg" alt=""> +</div> + +<p>‘The present little work, which is specially addressed to children, +is written in so pleasant and easy a style, and its descriptions of +life on the earth are on the whole so simple and accurate, that we +can heartily recommend it to the attention of those who seek such +a guide. The illustrations are good, and the general appearance of +the book such that it may compare most favourably with other +primers of geology.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Geological Magazine.</span><br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘Written in clear and simple style, especially attractive to +children. It includes an account of pre-historic man, and shows in +many other ways that the writer is familiar with some of the +latest phases of geological thought.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Academy.</span><br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘The avowed object of this charming little book is to place the +results of these researches within the grasp of children, by presenting +them in language at once clear, simple, and winning.... In this +hard task Mr. <span class="smcap">Nicols</span> has succeeded admirably, without resorting +to that base subterfuge—the attempt to clothe instruction in the +guise of fiction.... This is true education, for it teaches children +first to observe and then to reason.... Though the style of this +delightful book is simple and childlike, it is as far as possible +removed from being childish.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Pall Mall Gazette.</span><br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘The language is plain, the descriptions are lucid, the illustrations +apt, and the broad facts of the science are very correctly stated. +The work, too, is free from all attempts at fine writing.... We +wish the book success as at any rate an attempt to lay before the +young fact instead of fiction.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Quarterly Journal</span> of <span class="smcap">Science</span>.<br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘The book is a successful attempt to explain the simplest facts +of geology, and of the succession of life on the earth.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Westminster Review.</span><br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘The idea is a happy one, and will recommend itself to children; +and we are bound to say that Mr. <span class="smcap">Nicols</span> has carried out his idea +remarkably well, and produced a work which will do much to spread +sound notions upon the gradual development of our earth and its +inhabitants to the condition in which we now see them.... We +can safely recommend Mr. <span class="smcap">Nicols’</span> little book as one that will +have a most beneficial effect in opening the minds of its young +readers.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Popular Science Review.</span><br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘This is a good little book, cleverly written by an able geologist, +and well adapted for children. We can recommend the volume as +a present to any intelligent boy or girl.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Lancet.</span><br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘This book appears to be, in style, language, and scope, eminently +adapted for its purpose, which is to awaken among the little folks +an interest “in the history of life upon the earth,” and “give them +the taste for more extended study in after years.”’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Illustrated London News.</span><br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘“Though these pages are designed for young persons,” says the +Author, “other readers, perhaps, who are not familiar with the +subject, may find some interest in them, if they are not deterred by +the necessarily simple style,”—which, we venture to say, they most +assuredly will not be.... To many grown persons, therefore, as well +as their descendants, will this book be a great boon, which, if they +are at all liberal-minded, they will advocate as well as appreciate.... +Like the Science Primers of Professors Huxley, Roscoe, Balfour +Stewart, &c., if duly read and weighed, it will tend to unravel and +sweep away a deal of baneful superstition.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Land</span> and <span class="smcap">Water</span>.<br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘That Mr. <span class="smcap">Nicols</span> has succeeded in the object he proposed to +himself may be safely affirmed. He has done his work briefly and +lucidly, and has produced a book capable of arresting the attention, +not only of children, but of those from whom they receive their +earlier lessons.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +The <span class="smcap">Country</span>.<br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘A perfect “Open Sesame” for young scientific students, and so +cleverly composed as to make students of those who are not scientific: +not merely the young, but older people too. Mr. <span class="smcap">Nicols</span> thoroughly +understands his work.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Notes</span> and <span class="smcap">Queries</span>.<br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘Easily and attractively written for young people.... The treatment +of so wide a subject, and the condensing it into a volume of +150 pages is no light task. We can, however, congratulate Mr. +<span class="smcap">Nicols</span> upon having accomplished it in so judicious, perhaps, better +still, so suggestive a manner; and we have no doubt that his little +book will become a well-worn favourite in the hands of all +thoughtful and intelligent children who may be so fortunate as to +possess it.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Engineer.</span><br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘The manner in which the pieces of the puzzle—fossils—are +found, put together, and interpreted, is related in language readily +understood by children; the description of the vegetable, animal, +and human parts being peculiarly interesting. The illustrations +are the best of the kind with which we are acquainted.... We +strongly recommend it.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Schoolmaster.</span><br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘It is the puzzle as to the history of life on the earth unravelled +in a manner to interest and enlighten the minds, and to develop +the observing and reflecting faculties of children.... The results of +costly and laborious investigations in many different branches of +science are concentrated in these free and easy lessons or colloquial +lectures to young children.... Calculated to arouse an interest in +all but the dullest and most indifferent juvenile minds.... Will be +found invaluable to teachers and a great help in the rational cultivation +of the intelligence of the rising generation.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">School Board Chronicle.</span><br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘The statement of these facts, though made with all the sobriety +due to a scientific discourse, has all the interest of a story for the +young; and the narrative, if we mistake not, will interest other +readers than those for whom it is primarily written. A word of +commendation must be given to the illustrations, which are exceedingly +well drawn.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Educational Times.</span><br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘To place the “simple truths of science” in rivalry with fairy +tales and merry picture-books is not so hopeless as at first sight +may seem; and certainly the simple, attractive style in which the +marvels of the physical world are here set out must not only interest, +but charm every bright child of eager intellect. Simplicity is +observed to the utmost, but it is the simplicity of truth, so that the +child is not interested at the expense of having afterwards to unlearn +what he has read or listened to.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Liverpool Weekly Albion.</span><br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘Mr. <span class="smcap">Arthur Nicols</span> has attempted a task which at first sight +seems extremely difficult, but which he has successfully achieved.... +Children can scarcely help understanding and being interested +in the wonderful story of the earth’s crust, and of past organic life +upon it, which he unfolds. There is nothing childish about his +style, yet he writes with perfect simplicity.... A better book to +put into the hands of thoughtful children, or for use as a text-book +by persons engaged in the private tuition of the young, it would +be difficult to find.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +The <span class="smcap">Scotsman</span>.<br> +</p> +<br> + +<p>‘Facts are stranger than any fancies which emanate from the +writers of even fairy tales, and when they can be brought home to +youthful students by ocular demonstrations the facts are invariably +preferred to the fancies.... The illustrations which adorn the book +are well drawn, and sufficiently numerous for the purpose.... The +Author is a genial and reliable guide to a solution of the puzzle of +life.’</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">English Mechanic.</span><br> +</p> + +<hr class="r5"> + +<p class="center no-indent fs120 wsp">London, LONGMANS & CO.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter transnote"> +<h2 class="bold fs150 wsp">Transcriber’s Notes</h2> + +<table class="autotable lh"> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">pg 29 Changed:</td> +<td class="tdl">For innumerable agest hese little creatures</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">to:</td> +<td class="tdl">For innumerable ages these little creatures</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">pg 91 Changed:</td> +<td class="tdl">Footnote 1: Wall-case No. 11 in Room III., several specimens, mperfect</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">to:</td> +<td class="tdl">Footnote 1: Wall-case No. 11 in Room III., several specimens, imperfect</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">pg 131 Changed:</td> +<td class="tdl">lived as that these flin weapons and tools</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">to:</td> +<td class="tdl">lived as that these flint weapons and tools</td> +</tr> +</table> + +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75564 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75564-h/images/cover.jpg b/75564-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b626b77 --- /dev/null +++ b/75564-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/75564-h/images/f011.jpg b/75564-h/images/f011.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5dc43ab --- /dev/null +++ b/75564-h/images/f011.jpg diff --git a/75564-h/images/i_f004.jpg b/75564-h/images/i_f004.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e142b23 --- /dev/null +++ b/75564-h/images/i_f004.jpg diff --git a/75564-h/images/i_p051-1.jpg b/75564-h/images/i_p051-1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..19c6e94 --- /dev/null +++ b/75564-h/images/i_p051-1.jpg diff --git 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