110 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1893. 



still higher. Between the decapitated crest of Millstone Hill or Rat- 

 tle Snake Ridge and the bottom of the peaty deposits in the vicinity 

 of the sewage settling works at Quinsigamond there is 300 feet of 

 difference of level. "What is the cause? Not one, but several. 

 Causes are not generally single, but manifold. We mistake in postu- 

 lating single forces for any change. A stone rolls down a steep hill. 

 Is it because the hill is steep? Partly, but what if the stone were a 

 handful of clay or mud ? Would it then roll ? No. So we say we 

 grow strawberries. Do we? or the earth, or the fertilizer we add to 

 it? Or does the sunlight, or the rains from heaven. All, all. Air, 

 earth and water all contribute to the plant life. The soil is nature's 

 laboratory — a place where operations or experiments are carried on 

 upon the grandest scale. To account ultimately for these soils let us go 

 back a little — seventy millions of years — not less, possibly ten times 

 longer, and the whole globe is at a white heat — no water on it — it has 

 not settled yet. Neither is there air. It is far away yet, on the top 

 of the gray hot mist of all the lifted ocean, or dissolved in the mighty 

 enveloping mass. The old round world cools a little — it becomes 

 dark in color like the iron just off from the forge or out from the 

 rolling mill, or like the coil of wire newly reeled in the wire mill. But 

 throw that coil of wire into the mill-yard, and the gray-black becomes 

 rusty-brown. Let this cooling molten rock, — like the dark trap I 

 hold in my hand, be exposed to the moist air and it turns a dirty 

 brown. It oxidizes, rusts slowly and crumbles. Ultimately this 

 will give a brown or reddish brown color to the disintegrated mass. 

 The same process goes on now in the change of lavas. They come 

 out of Vesuvius or other volcanoes dead black in part, but exposed to 

 air turn brick red. The iron within has oxidized. [Two pieces of 

 lavafrom Vesuvius were shown in illustration]. Or if the lava be 

 destitute of iron, it will cool white and spongy. We call it pumice- 

 stone. This ground up by the action of water makes sand. So was 

 formed the sand on the earliest sea-shore of geological time. Under- 

 neath, quartz crystals were made, or if the materials of clay were 

 present, feldspar and mica would aggregate, and in time coarse 

 granites be formed, or basalt of a coarse grain be produced. Again, 

 into the sea of that early time would in the condensing of the vapors 

 which surrounded the cooling earth be gathered the carbonates of 

 lime and soda, the common salt, and other soluble minerals and salts 

 — probably in much greater proportion to the pure water than now — 

 and so was provided the immense store for the growth of that vast 

 range of coral and shell-fish life which inhabited the early oceans, and 



