526 ARCHEOLOGY 



to-day, possesses, like the poor but industrious man who, thriftily, 

 cent by cent, at length succeeds in piling up heaps of golden coins. 



No one knows whether, on removing the stones of some ruin, 

 it will be found that one of the great ideas, which is to-day the 

 inheritance of modern nations, did not have there its birth. When, 

 in centuries to come, the city of Seville perchance may disappear, 

 some scholar, perhaps, on finding the remains of the Giralda, may 

 be unaware that from the brain which framed it there was evolved 

 algebra. 



For these reasons, the science of dead things has its place in 

 the exposition with which the city of St. Louis astounds the world. 

 Here are gathered all the forces of the civilized nations, that, vying 

 one with another, exhibit their products in science, art, industry, 

 and commerce. Here is to be found whatever the present genera- 

 tion has been able to attain. And all here strikes wonder into the 

 soul and admiration into the mind. It might be thought that 

 the earth was giving a concert to the skies, with the screeching of 

 locomotives, the whistling of engines, the scraping of plows, the 

 creaking of presses, the measured thud of steamers, the movement 

 of all the nations here united, with their many-tongued clamor, 

 with the monster's breath exhaled by multitudes: a glorious hymn 

 of work, accompanied by the waters of the Mississippi. 



And all here is flames and conflagration: and all is fire and light. 

 And to this eruption of the splendors of the sciences and arts, 

 there is added archeology, the phosphorescent fire of the immense 

 cemetery of past ages. Phosphorescent fire: yes, but fire. And 

 all fire is light ! 



