mountingto assist t discovered t turned a slab of s contained fossilcrustaceans of an especially ancient and unusual type. Snoer comes earlyto t linger, but t year at t opportunityalcott returned to t. tracing te of t to near tain’s summit. t above sea level, crop, about ty block, containing an unrivaled array of fossils from soonafter t t , tology. tcrop becameknoime it provided “our sole vista upon tionof modern life in all its fullness,” as te Stephen Jay Gould recorded in his popular bookonderful Life .

    Gould, ever scrupulous, discovered from reading alcott’s diaries t tory of to  embroidered—alcott makes nomention of a slipping  ting t it raordinary find.

    It is almost impossible for us ed to a breezy feoappreciate e in time from us tburst o t at te of one year per second, it ake you about o reacime of C, and a little over to get back to the beginnings of human life.

    But it ake you ty years to reac remely long time ago, and t place.

    For one t  attop of a mountain but at t of one. Specifically it tom of a steep cliff. t time teemed  normally t norecord because t-bodied and decayed upon dying. But at Burgess tures beloombed in a mudslide, ures preserved in ail.

    In annual summer trips from 1910 to 1925 (by t excavated tens of t cional Georgrap back toason for furtudy. In boty tion . Some ing of 140 species by one count. “ty in anatomical designs never again equaled, and notmatcoday by all tures in te.

    Unfortunately, according to Goul