352 THE LURE OF THE LAND 



The sea, the miser of the vanished ages, 

 Gives up its cherished dead to weed and coral, 

 And from the tombs of heroes and of sages 

 Spring fields of corn and fragrant beauties floral. 



The dust of Caesar, through the centuries sifting, 

 Will reach new life, and feel the thrill of being j 

 No grave so deep, the storied shaft uplifting, 

 As darkened eye to keep again from seeing. 



The very bread, which you to-day are eating, 



Has passed from earliest aeons through life's phases, 



The circle of eternal life completing, 



Secure, untouched, through all its mystic mazes. 



The sea is the final receptacle of the plant food, 

 which seems to be hopelessly lost. The rain dissolves 

 and carries away the elements which escape absorption 

 by the plant. The streams and rivers finally carry 

 these precious stores into the ocean, where they, to the 

 thoughtless observer, are forever hidden. But not so. 

 The sea is the great conserver and sorter. Nothing 

 which enters these apparently unfathomable depths es- 

 capes attention. Mineral substances of like nature are 

 brought together and deposited in layers of various 

 thicknesses, which subsequent changes of level in the 

 earth's crust render available. Sea weeds and algae 

 seize on the soluble portions of this waste of matter 

 and fix them in their tissues. Afterwards this vege- 

 table matter serves for the nourishment of marine ani- 

 mal life, or is cast upon the shore, and becomes directly 

 useful to man for the fertilizing principles it contains. 

 Marine animal life feeds on other stores of waste mat- 

 ter, and converts them into forms suitable for food for 

 man and for fertilizing purposes. Vast stores of oil, 

 human food, nitrogenous and phosphatic fertilizers are 

 thus rescued annually from the depths of the sea. 



