The Petrified Man

The Petrified Man is the satirical story written in 1871. The hero of the story is the newly appointed editor of the local news in the Virginia-city newspaper. Taking advantage of his position, he decided to put the end to the excessive enthusiasm of Nevada and California residents to natural wonders, including fossils. Based on unsubstantiated facts, this fashionable "scientific" craze was just ridiculous. Our Knight of the Mind chose the humor as his weapon... What has happened? As it says in the first line of the story, it is “really hard it is to foist a moral or a truth upon an unsuspecting public through a burlesque without entirely and absurdly missing one's mark”.