TIME AND CHANGE 



major part in the genealogy of the subsequent strati- 

 fied rocks, it would be folly to deny. But it seems to 

 me that chemical and cosmic processes, working 

 through the air and the water, have contributed 

 more than they have been credited with. 



It looks as if in all cases when the soil is carried 

 to the sea-bottom as sediment, and again, during 

 the course of ages, consolidated into rocks, the 

 rocks thus formed have exceeded in bulk the rocks 

 that gave them birth. Something analogous to 

 vital growth takes place. It seems as if the original 

 granite centres set the world-building forces at 

 work. They served as nuclei around which the 

 materials gathered. These rocks bred other rocks, 

 and these still others, and yet others, till the frame- 

 work of the land was fairly established. They were 

 like the pioneer settlers who plant homes here and 

 there in the wilderness, and then in due time all the 

 land is peopled. 



The granite is the Adam rock, and through a long 

 line of descent the major part of all the other rocks 

 directly or indirectly may be traced. Thus the gran- 

 ite begot the Algonquin, the Algonquin begot the 

 Cambrian, the Cambrian begot the Silurian, the 

 Silurian begot the Devonian, and so on up through 

 the Carboniferous, the Permian, the Mesozoic rocks, 

 the Tertiary rocks, to the latest Quaternary de- 

 posit. But the curious thing about it all is the enor- 

 mous progeny from so small a beginning; the rocks 



102 



