TIME AND CHANGE 



the rock eroded. Nearly all the wonderful and beau- 

 tiful sculpturing of the rocks in the West and South- 

 west is in rocks of comparatively recent date. 



Can we say that all the organic matter of our 

 time is from preexisting organic matter? one or- 

 ganism torn down to build up another? that the be- 

 ginning of the series was as great as the end? There 

 may have been as much matter in a state of vital 

 organization in Carboniferous or in Cretaceous times 

 as in our own, but there is certainly more now than 

 in early Palaeozoic times. Yet every grain of this 

 matter has existed somewhere in some form for all 

 time. Or we might ask if all the wealth of our day 

 is from preexisting wealth — one fortune pulled 

 down to build up another, — too often the case, 

 it is true, — thus passing the accumulated wealth 

 along from one generation to another. On the con- 

 trary, has there not been a steady gain of that we 

 call wealth through the ingenuity and the industry 

 of man directed towards the latent wealth of the 

 earth? In a parallel manner has there been a gain 

 in the bulk of the secondary rocks through the ac- 

 tion of the world-building forces directed to the sea, 

 the air, and the preexisting rocks. Had there been 

 no gain, the fact would suggest the ill luck of a man 

 investing his capital in business and turning it over 

 and over, and having no more money at the end than 

 he had in the beginning. 



Nothing is in the sedimentary rock that was not 



104 



