1288 THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE 



covers our cheese, our bread, our jam, or our ink, 

 and disfigures our damp walls, is nothing but a col- 

 lection of plants. The many-colored fire which 

 sparkles on the surface of a summer sea at night, as 

 the vessel plows her way, or which drips from the 

 oars in lines of jeweled light, is produced by mil- 

 lions of minute animals. 



Nor does the vast procession end here. Our very 

 mother-earth is formed of the debris of life. Plants 

 and animals which have been built up its solid 

 fabric. We dig downward thousands of feet be- 

 low the surface, and discover with surprise the 

 skeletons of strange, uncouth animals, which roamed 

 the fens and struggled through the woods before 

 man was. Our surprise is heightened when we 

 learn that the very quarry itself is mainly com- 

 posed of the skeletons of microscopic animals; the 

 flints which grate beneath our carriage wheels are 

 but the remains of countless skeletons. The Apen- 

 nines and Cordilleras, the chalk cliffs so dear to 

 homeward-nearing eyes these are the pyramids of 

 bygone generations of atomies. Ages ago these 

 tiny architects secreted the tiny shells which were 

 their palaces; from the ruins of these palaces we 

 build our Parthenons, our St. Peters, and our Lou- 

 vres. So revolves the luminous orb of Life! Gen- 

 erations follow generations ; and the Present becomes 

 the matrix of the Future, as the Past was of the 

 Present the Life of one epoch forming the prelude 

 to a higher Life. 



When we have thus ranged air, earth, and water, 

 finding everywhere a prodigality of living forms, 



