143 



A word or two uii llw <;ri,';it pripll iyMcy of luitiin' iii tliis I'oriii ol lil'o. I»ming 

 tlie jiorioil of rt'cediiij{ waters on tlu' Falls, in tlu- spiiiiu ami suiiiuh r, myriads of 

 those iiiolhisks are left in small pools ami rills. Later in llie srasmi tliesi- pools 

 entirely dry nji, and the shells, of eourse, die. It is no exanijei'ation for nu' to say 

 that a lumdred wagon loads a year, for the past three years that these falls have 

 lieen under ohservation, have perished in tiiis way alone, and this has annually 

 occurred for centnries. ( )ne is constrained to ask why it is thai nature is so i)rof- 

 ligate of life, and to question wiiether, after all, the ordinary concei»tion of its 

 saeredness is not one which the facts of nature do not conserve. The fact needs 

 explanation. Certain it is, howevt'r, that if these forms reached maturity, and in 

 turn ]iroduced their kind in the enormous numbers that the 8tre])omatids do re- 

 })r()diice, very soon tlie waters of the river wotild he dammed l>y a living, moving 

 mass of animals, which in sonu' situations are so tenacious of life as to have com- 

 pletely ociduded large \v;iter mains and led to iMiornious cost to effect their re- 

 moval. 



