Animals of the Past
Frederic LUCAS
MP3 CD
(IDB Productions, Sept. 3, 2019)
Animals of the Past ANIMALS OF THE PAST I FOSSILS, AND HOW THEY ARE FORMED "How of a thousand snakes each one Was changed into a coil of stone." Fossils are the remains, or even the indications, of animals and plants that have, through natural agencies, been buried in the earth and preserved for long periods of time. This may seem a rather meagre definition, but it is a difficult matter to frame one that will be at once brief, exact, and comprehensive; fossils are not necessarily the remains of extinct animals or plants, neither are they, of necessity, objects that have become petrified or turned into stone. Bones of the Great Auk and Rytina, which are quite extinct, would hardly be considered as fossils; while the bones of many species of animals, still living, would properly come in that category, having long ago been buried by natural causes and often been changed into stone. And yet it is not essential for a specimen to have had its animal matter replaced by some mineral in order that it may be classed as a fossil, for the Siberian Mammoths, found entombed in ice, are very properly spoken of as fossils, although the flesh of at least one of these animals was so fresh that it was eaten. Likewise the mammoth tusks brought to market are termed fossil-ivory, although differing but little from the tusks of modern elephants.