TIME AND CHANGE 



the shower did not cause him to quicken his pace, 

 as amphibians rather Hke the rain. Just what his 

 immediate forbears were hke, or what the forms 

 were that connected him with the fishes, we shall 

 probably never know. Doubtless the great book 

 of the rocky strata somewhere holds the secret, if 

 we are ever lucky enough to open it at the right 

 place. How many other secrets, that evolutionists 

 would like to know, those torn and crumpled leaves 

 hold! 



It is something to me to know that it rained that 

 day when our amphibian ancestor ventured out. 

 The weather was beginning to get organized also, 

 and settling down to business. It had got beyond 

 the state of perpetual mist and fog of the earlier 

 ages, and the raindrops were playing their parts. 

 Yet, from all the evidence we have, we infer that the 

 climate was warm and very humid, like that of a 

 greenhouse, and that vegetation, mostly giant ferns 

 and rushes and lycopods, was very rank, but there 

 was no grass, or moss, no deciduous trees, or flowers, 

 or fruit, as we know these things. 



A German anatomist says that we have the ves- 

 tiges of one hundred and eighty organs which have 

 stuck to us from our animal ancestors, — now use- 

 less, or often worse than useless, like the vermiform 

 appendix. Eleven of these superannuated and ob- 

 solete organs we bring from the fishes, four from 

 amphibians and reptiles. The external ear is a ves- 



32 



