Confused Reading

One thing leads to another. I was reading Willy Ley's excellent but odd book "Exotic Zoology" which led to a textbook of geology and then another on the history of lithography. All this because of Archaeopteryx, that early bird. A kind of normal day off for me. I have a great library and my reference section is extensive. The first fossils of the early birds came from the Altmuhl Valley in Bavaria, north of the Danube, where there are particularly fine beds of slate, the best in the world, right at the surface. Slate is actually limestone that has a very smooth surface and splits well. The very best is from Solnhofen, used to roof all those castles. Fossils were fairly common, mostly small fish and dragonflies. The locals saved them as curiosities. A minor composer had inherited the job as Director of Mines, Aloys Senefelder; copper plates were expensive, he couldn't find a publisher and invented stone lithography, 1796, using Solnhofen slate. The fossils from this area are called lithographic. And there are pictures, with slight relief, showing the first feathers. Proving what several people had imagined about the origin of birds. Matter of detail. A reptile becomes a bird, scales become feathers. Cuvier made the connection, called it a 'flying reptile'. And suddenly an exact reproduction was available. Printing took another step. You could see the thing itself without a trip to Bavaria. Books and the history of information. A great dinner of homemade chorizo and eggs, salsa, and avocado. After dinner I roll a smoke and get a drink, sit out on the back deck and listen to the bugs, the usual cacophony, refreshing in its sameness: every night, just at darkness, the bugs take over the world. Grasshoppers and crickets, various critters that rub their legs together, and make a sound. A Bach Partita.