98 THE CHEMISTRY OF CREATION. 



Insects come, and bore long galleries through 

 its sides; ants and beetles also drill their holes 

 through and through, and others eat away its 

 bark. Thus rain and air get access to the 

 very heart of the tree. By-and-bye, all the 

 insects have taken their departure. The sun, 

 wind, and rain, have been, nevertheless, inces- 

 santly acting upon it ; and now a tribe of 

 painted fungi, of the most curious forms and 

 splendid colours, sit upon the crumbling mass. 

 Another portion of time glides away. Where 

 is the prostrate tree? 



The smiling sward, the up-springing flower, 

 the unruffled aspect of surrounding vegetation, 

 answer, " Not here not here." Even so. The 

 place which for centuries it covered with the 

 grateful shadow of its broad branches, which 

 it protected from the fierce pelting of the 

 tropical storm, and fiercer rays of a tropic's 

 sun, has forgotten even its existence. " The 

 place thereof knows it no more." 



Is it so ? Is the tree not there ? Surely it is ; 

 but its elements have all long since passed into 

 another form, and some may at this moment 

 actually form a portion of the ungrateful vege- 

 tation, which by its thick and clustering growth, 

 and undisturbed appearance, seemed to have 

 denied even its existence. The tree has crum- 

 bled into dust ; and the dust has blended with 



