56 The Stream grows Larger. 



western mouth. So too, doubtless, the sun shone 

 into the hollow in the evening cycle upon cycle ere 

 then. 



Up the blade of grass here a tiny white-shelled 

 snail has crawled, feeling in its dull, dim way that 

 evening is approaching. The coils of the little shell 

 are exquisitely turned the workmanship is perfect ; 

 the creature within, there can be no question, is 

 equally perfect in its way and finds a joy in the 

 plants on which it feeds. On the ground below, 

 hidden among the fibres near the roots of the grass, 

 lies another tiny shell ; but it is empty, the life that 

 once animated it has fled whither? Presently the 

 falling dew will condense upon it, and at the opening 

 one round drop will stand ; after a while to add its 

 mite to the ceaseless flow of the fountain. Could any 

 sj'stem of notation ever express the number of these 

 creatures -that have existed in the past? If time is 

 measured by the duration of life, reckoned by their 

 short spans eternity upon eternity has gone by. To 

 me the greatest marvel is the countless, the infinite 

 number of the organisms that have existed, each with 

 its senses and feelings, whose bodies now help to 

 build up the solid crust of the earth. These tiny 

 shells have had millions of ancestors : Nature seems 

 never weary of repeating the same model. 



In ttie osier-bed the brook-sparrow chatters ; there, 

 too, the first pollard willow stands, or rather leans, 

 hollow and aged, across the water. This tree is 

 the outpost of a thousand others that line the banks 

 of the stream for mile after mile yonder down in the 

 valley. How quickly this little fountain grows into a 

 streamlet and then to a considerable brook ! with- 



