THROUGH THE GEOLOGIST'S EYES 



It is very interesting to me to know that in Colo- 

 rado charred wood, and even charcoal, have been 

 found in Cretaceous deposits. The fact seems to give 

 a human touch to that long-gone time. It was, of 

 course, long ages before the evolution of man, as 

 man, had taken place, yet such is the power of as- 

 sociation, that those charred sticks instantly call 

 him to mind, as if we had come upon the place of his 

 last campfire. At any rate, it is something to know 

 that man, when he did come, did not have to dis- 

 cover or invent fire, but that this element, which has 

 played such a large part in his development and 

 civilization, was here before him, waiting, like so 

 many other things in nature, to be his servant and 

 friend. As Vulcan was everywhere rampant during 

 this age, throwing out enough lava in India alone 

 to put a lava blanket four or five feet thick over the 

 whole surface of the globe, it was probably this fire 

 that charred the wood. It would be interesting to 

 know if these enormous lava-flows always followed 

 the subsidence of some part of the earth's crust. In 

 Cretaceous times both the subsidence and the lava- 

 flows seem to have been worldwide. 



IV 



We seem to think that the earth has sown all her 

 wild oats, that her riotous youth is far behind her, 

 and that she is now passing into a serene old age. 

 Had we lived during any of the great periods of the 



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