Some day when you want an interesting and delightful nature lesson that is a little out of the ordinary, get, if you can, a fossil fern. If you are in the city, doubtless you can get one from the museum, or, better yet, you may find that among your pupils there is someone who has such a specimen carefully treasured away. In some localities where the limestone rock comes to the surface, especially in the coal measures, these petrified ferns are very numerous. Show this to the class and get them all interested in it.
If you cannot get a specimen to use, you can find a picture in the encyclopedia or geology, or you can tell the pupils how in some places it is possible to pick up from among the rocks on the surface of the ground oblong pieces perhaps a half inch thick, in which, when they are split open, you can see the impression of a fern, every vein showing plainly and looking as clear in the dull gray as it showed when alive in its green dress.
Tell the story of the fern something after this fashion:
“Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, so many years, in fact, that none of us can tell how many, somewhere in a valley, there grew a beautiful little fern, green and slender. It was as tender and delicate as the ones you can find in the woods now, and grew in just such a shady place. When the breezes crept down under the trees they waved the fern gracefully about so that it gently touched the tall rushes that grew above it and cast little shadows on the moss at its feet. Now and then a playful sunbeam darted through the crevices in the leaves and found the fern, and at night drops of dew stole silently in and made a glistening crown upon its head. But there were no children then to find it. It was long, long ago, when the earth was young, and nowhere on its broad surface was a single human child.
“Out in the silent sea fishes larger than any that can be found now were swimming about. Across the plains of the earth animals of wonderful shapes and enormous size stalked clumsily and found their way into stately forests. No man ever saw growing such trees as waved their giant branches over the earth, for then Nature made things on a grander scale than she does now. The little fern, however, was wild and simple, and lived in its home unnoticed and uncared for by any of the great creatures or the mighty trees. Still it grew on modestly in its own sweet way, spreading its fronds and becoming more beautiful every day.
“Then suddenly one day the earth heaved up its mighty rocks and threw them about in every direction. The strong currents of the ocean broke loose and flooded over the land. They drowned the animals, moved the plain, tore down the haughty woods and cast the great trunks about like straw. They broke the little fern from its slender stalk, and burying it deep in soft moist clay, hid it safely away.
“Many, many long centuries have passed since the day the useless little fern was lost. Millions of human beings have come upon the earth, have lived and been happy, have suffered, passed away, and have been forgotten. The soft, moist clay that clasped the fern hardened into rock and kept safely in its strong prison the delicate little frond.
“Then one day, not long ago, a thoughtful man studying Nature’s secrets far and wide found up in a valley where a stream had worn a deep fissure, a queer little rock. When he looked at it, he saw running over it a strange design, as though some fairy with its magic pencil had drawn the outline of a fern with every vein distinct, showing in every line the life of the long-lost plant. It was the fern I told you about.
“Isn’t it strange that so delicate a thing as a fern could be kept clear and fine through all those thousands of years when the earth was changing and growing, and then finally be thrown up where a man could find it and read its whole history? The poet, Mary Bolles Branch, saw the little fern and wrote the beautiful lines which I now want to read to you.”
(Here read the poem, The Petrified Fern, found in Journeys, Volume VII, page 77.)