la4 MLSSOUKl STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



a sound, whose weight was only more than tliat of a feather, that gath- 

 ering from the air, carried on its work of formation and transformation 

 as it hung for its brief hour, and at last dropped its insects' load of gas 

 condensed to the earth below, has done, is doing a later, finer work than 

 any of these. 



It has trembled when the earthquake shook the solid ground, the 

 fire of the heavens has blazed, and the thunders have roared above it ; 

 forests have been buried under contending oceans, or have gone heaven- 

 ward from consuming fires ; orders have ceased to be, and species have 

 given place that others might come. The animals and the insects have 

 devoured them, or they have moldered to dust ; but the leaf has not 

 failed from the face of the earth, for each year has brought its sure and 

 ever new creation. 



We, for our present purposes, do . not need to be troubled with 

 speculations as to the nebular theory, nor at all to go back behind 

 where science has made facts plain; and knowledge positive. Let us 

 look at the leaves in the light of ages untold, but without conjecture 

 and without imaginings. 



The earth was without form, and void. Gravity and motion gave it 

 shape. Among, and on top of this material, the fires and waters con- 

 tended lor the mastery. Over all was an atmosphere, wherein no man 

 could have lived for one moment. 



This was to be prepared to receive the man. The fires were re- 

 strained, the earthquakes were moderated, and the seas found their places. 

 From above, enough that had floated there for periods, led by the 

 increasing force of gravity had settled down so that the sunlight began 

 to reach the naked earth ; but the air was still heavily laden, and car- 

 bonic acid gas was everywhere. No need to wonder what the first 

 vegetation was — we cannot know. 



After awhile vegetation of a giant size, rude in shape, coarse of 

 texture, with leaves of ^mple form and of unvaried pale, dull green, 

 was extracting the gas from the air and preparing the material for the 

 coal beds. 



Such trees and plants would chill to death in one of our summer 

 days, or perish in one of our nights for want of poisonous gas upon 

 which to thrive. But they did their allotted task, and the coal was laid 

 away till the man should come, and the air was made ready for him to 

 breathe ; and as vegetation grew higher in its character, a better soil 

 was laid on the surface that out of it might grow the things he needt d. 

 Animals preceded him and fed upon every green thing, so that when he 



