48 Thirtieth Annual Meeting 



MAN AS A CONTROLLING FACTOR IN AQUATIC LIFE. 



15Y ])1!. J. C. rARKEl!. 



Tlie inoxoral)lo logic of luiman progress for the century, just 

 past, would seem to indicate that "'the Power that makes"' in the 

 Universe, if intelligent, had made a mistake in the arrangement 

 of things : for instead of hringing man on to this stage of action 

 as the last creative act, he should have been the ver}^ first and 

 then left in absolute fee simple with the raw material of this 

 earth at least — on his hands — to fashion as he might. For ever 

 since his advent, he has been "^eternally fixing things up'' so 

 that he might be more comfortable. He found himself in need 

 of a "Shirt Waist" and other things and as the "Power that 

 makes" had not furnished any, he had to hustle around and rob 

 the wild beasts of their hides to keep his o^^ti warm. He wanted 

 Milwaukee bricks and "Marble Halls" and the "Power" had 

 only furnished daub}'^ clay and rocky ledges. So he had to get up 

 and hustle for a habitation. He found that his powers of loco- 

 motion were too slow, that in this respect the horse and the 

 camel were his superiors and so he persuaded them to carry him 

 wherever he wanted to go. But he wanted to go as fast as any 

 thing on the face of the earth, and the fastest thing he knew 

 anything about was the birds, so he wanted to fly. Well ! he 

 tried that but so far the bird is ahead, but he harnessed a tea 

 kettle to a wagon and by keeping "eternally at it" he has a rail- 

 road and palace cars and has come as near flying as possible and 

 keep his feet on the ground. He wanted to cross the river and he 

 goes astride a log, then paddles across. Now he builds steam 

 ships a quarter of a mile long, thus can go around the world in 

 the time it would have taken to go from New Orleans to New 

 York at the beginning of the century. He was afraid of the 

 dark so lighted a pine knot, and that pine knot has grown to be 

 an arc light and turns night into day. 



Along every avenue of the inorganic he has been a builder. 

 He is the only animal that has ever existed who has left any- 

 thing besides his bones to mark his place in nature and if by any 



