Virginia Lee Burton

When Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel, Mary Anne, lose their jobs to the gasoline, electric, and diesel motor shovels, they find a new opportunity in a very surprising place.

Relates for children some theories about the origins of life. Shows the changing face of the earth from the first cataclysmic upheavals through the various ages of the tiny sea creatures, the flowering plants, the dinosaurs, the mammals, and finally the works of man.