rarely, if ever, find mention of any
examination of the rock being made subsequently to the discovery.
Hence, a first and grave objection may be taken to the validity of the
supposition that the rock was solid, and it may be fairly urged that
on this supposition the whole question turns and depends. For if the
rock cannot be proved to have been impermeable to and barred against
the entrance of living creatures, the objector may proceed to show the
possibility of the toad having gained admission, under certain notable
circumstances, to its prison-house.

The frog or toad in its young state, and having just entered upon its
terrestrial life, is a small creature, which could, with the utmost
ease, wriggle into crevices and crannies of a size which would almost
preclude such apertures being noticed at all. Gaining access to a
roomier crevice or nook within, and finding there a due supply of air,
along with a dietary consisting chiefly of insects, the animal would
grow with tolerable rapidity, and would increase to such an extent
that egress through its aperture of entrance would become an
impossibility. Next, let us suppose that the toleration of the toad's
system to starvation and to a limited supply of air is taken into
account, together with the fact that these creatures will hibernate
during each winter, and thus economize, as it were, their vital
activity and strength; and after the animal has thus existed for a
year or two--no doubt under singularly hard conditions--let us imagine
that the rock is split up by the wedge and lever of the excavator. We
can then readily enough account for the apparently inexplicable story
of "the toad in the rock." "There is the toad and here is the solid
rock," say the gossips. "There is an animal which has singular powers
of sustaining life under untoward conditions, and which, in its young
state, could have gained admittance to the rock through a mere
crevice," says the naturalist in reply. Doubtless, the great army of
the unconvinced may still believe in the tale as told them; for the
weighing of evidence and the placing _pros_ and _cons_ in fair
contrast are not tasks of congenial or wonted kind in the ordinary run
of life. Some people there will be who will believe in the original
solid rock and its toad, despite the assertion of the geologists that
the earliest fossils of toads appear in almost the last-formed rocks,
and that a live toad in rocks of very ancient age--presuming,
a