Chapter 1 

 THE PAST 



All the past these mountains saw 

 All the years of toil and strife 

 Lives unknown that went before 

 They gave us this: our present life. 



Immediately west of Boulder the hills rise abruptly, exposing 

 ancient sedimentary strata of various ages. Rocks which were 

 originally almost or quite horizontal are now upturned, and in 

 some cases quite on edge, at right angles to the original plane of 

 deposition. No sudden catastrophe has brought this about, the 

 slow movements of the earth's crust are usually not appreciable 

 within our period of observation, but in the course of millions of 

 years mountain ranges rise or are worn away, leaving in the 

 rocks a record which can be interpreted by man. 1 1 is interesting 

 to think that the drama of nature, during the long ages of the 

 past, was incomprehensible to the beings peopling the earth; and 

 yet as its result there has emerged a creature capable of looking 

 back on the past with understanding mind, as the traveler on the 

 mountain top surveys the road by which he came. It is as 

 though the road led through dense jungles, in which it was possible 

 to see a short distance in any direction, until the rising ground 

 suddenly permitted a long range view to a distant horizon. Under 

 such circumstances the traveler, though perhaps footsore and 

 weary, would feel a thrill of exultation, and would eagerly note 

 hills and valleys, rivers and lakes, and other features of the 

 scenery. We are in precisely such a position, except that we now 

 concern ourselves with time rather than space, and can thereby 

 discern a history, in which events follow each other in orderly 

 sequence, related as causes and effects. Our interest is further 

 quickened when we realize that it is our history, without any 

 metaphor; that we are what we are because of the things that 

 were. The theory of the continuity of the germ plasm, now 

 firmly established by innumerable observations, postulates the 

 continuity of life itself from generation to generation throughout 

 the ages. Offspring arise as particles of their parents, and al- 

 though the vital forces appear to be at low ebb in the seed, spore 

 or egg, they are never extinguished. In this sense it may be 



