THE OYSTER. g 



In a long, flat river-valley it may be arrested for a 

 time, so that man may make use of it, but its final 

 destination is the ocean, and as this has already been 

 enriched by the washings through untold ages, all 

 that is most valuable for the support of life is now dis- 

 solved in its waters, or deposited upon its bottom, 

 where man can make no use of it. 



We love to dream of the shipwrecked treasures 

 which lie among the bones of the sailors on the sea- 

 bottom ; of the galleons sunk and lost with their pre- 

 cious cargoes of bullion and jewels from the treasure- 

 chambers of the Incas and the palaces of Asia; but 

 all these, and all the *' gems of purest ray serene, the 

 dark, unfathom'd caves of ocean bear ": all the thous- 

 ands of tons of gold and silver which, as chemists tell 

 us, the sea holds dissolved in its water, — all these are 

 as nothing when compared with these precious wash- 

 ings from the land of all that fits it for supporting life. 



Man will some time assert his dominion over the 

 fishes of the sea, and will learn to send out flocks and 

 herds of domesticated marine animals to pasture and 

 fatten upon the vegetable life of the ocean and to 

 make its vast wealth of food available, but at present 

 we are able to do little more than to snatch a slight 

 tribute from the stream of nutritive material which is 

 flowing down into the ocean, as it comes to temporary 

 rest in the valleys of our great rivers. 



Every one knows the part which these great river- 

 valleys have played in human civilization. In the 

 valley of the Nile, of the Tigris, and of the Ganges 

 we find the most dense populations ; here were the 

 great cities of the past; here agriculture and architec- 



