THE NEW EARTH 



life, but it was a vantage ground from which 

 I, a layman, might get some view at least 

 of the commanding outlook of the true mod- 

 ern science. It was made possible that I 

 should see this wonderful thing solely because 

 of the men of science who have been giving 

 their lives to the study of the phenomena of 

 life. Here it was biology that was uppermost; 

 and all around the globe where the seas give 

 up their great secrets men are at work searching 

 for new facts and old truths. Other men, 

 a growing host, are searching for the secrets 

 of the plants on which man depends for his 

 protection, for his sustenance, for his very life. 

 Both these groups of men, and others in 

 diverse but still allied lines, are hastening the 

 day of a completer knowledge of the New 

 Earth. 



It was not so many years ago, as the cen- 

 turies move, since the plant life of the world 

 was hidden behind an apparently impenetrable 

 veil. Beyond this lay a region of darkness 

 largely unexplored and unmapped, — a region 

 toward which man had sometimes moved in 

 some crude attempt at exploration, but from 

 which he had always returned with but little 



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