WONDERFUL COLLECTION OF

WAX-WORKS, ANCIENT FOSSILS,

ETC.

Professor Woodlouse affirmed that the word "Museum" was equivalent to the

phrase "lumgath molo," or "Burial Place." Upon entering, the scientists

were well astonished. But what they saw may be best conveyed in the

language of their own official report:

Erect, in a row, were a sort of rigid great figures which struck us

instantly as belonging to the long extinct species of reptile called MAN,

described in our ancient records. This was a peculiarly gratifying

discovery, because of late times it has become fashionable to regard this

creature as a myth and a superstition, a work of the inventive

imaginations of our remote ancestors. But here, indeed, was Man,

perfectly preserved, in a fossil state. And this was his burial place,

as already ascertained by the inscription. And now it began to be

suspected that the caverns we had been inspecting had been his ancient

haunts in that old time that he roamed the earth--for upon the breast of

each of these tall fossils was an inscription in the character heretofore

noticed. One read, 'CAPTAIN KIDD THE PIRATE'; another, 'QUEEN VICTORIA';

another, 'ABE LINCOLN'; another, 'GEORGE WASHINGTON,' etc.

With feverish interest we called for our ancient scientific records to

discover if perchance the description of Man there set down would tally

with the fossils before us. Professor Woodlouse read it aloud in its

168

Sketches New and Old