STEAY LEAVES 



BOOK OF NATURE 



"All Nature widens upward. Evermore 



The simpler essence lower lies : 

 More complex is, more perfect, owning more, 

 Discourses more widely wise." TENNYSON. 



A WAY out in Mesopotamia, the traveller sees vast 

 plains unroll themselves before his wondering eye, 

 and scattered over them many a grassy knoll with its 

 flock of goats and camels. No one suspected that under 

 those hills lay buried the ancient glory of Nineveh, "an 

 exceeding great city of three days' journey, wherein are 

 more than six score thousand persons." Like the faint 

 echo of distant thunder, a few half-forgotten names and 

 vague, dream-like legends, were all that had come down 



