HOW FOSSILS ARE FOUND: AND THE ROCKS THEY FORM.

A

As already noticed, it is the hard parts of buried animals and plants that are generally preserved. We will now consider the groups of organisms, one by one, and note the particular parts of each which we may reasonably expect to find in the fossil state.

MAMMALS.—The bones and teeth: as the Diprotodon remains of Lake Callabonna in South Australia ([Fig. 14]), of West Melbourne Swamp, Victoria, and the Darling Downs, Queensland. Rarely the skin, as in the carcases of the frozen Mammoth of the tundras of Northern Siberia; or the dried remains of the Grypotherium of South American caves.

Fig. 15—Bird Bones.
Exposed on Sand-blow at Seal Bay, King Island.

(Photo by C. L. Barrett).

Fig. 16—Impression of a Bird’s Feather
in Ironstone.
About 2/3 nat. size. Of Cainozoic (? Janjukian) Age. Redruth, Victoria.
(Nat. Mus. Coll.) 		Fig. 17—Notochelone costata, Owen sp. (Anterior portion of carapace.)
About 1/4 nat. size. A Marine Turtle from the Lower Cretaceous of Flinders River, Queensland.
(Nat. Mus. Coll.)