282* THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



bedded, peaty pulp I now hold in my hand was made and filed 

 away at a time when the mastodon came along here for food and 

 the big American elephant shook the earth with his heavy steps. 

 If I had time and patience, what a story this old library of primi- 

 tive paper could tell me ! It would be the tale of the world, who 

 lived on it, how they lived and how they died, the story of storm 

 and freshet and tornado, of drought and fire and famine, and the 

 family record of every insect, mammal, and bird which has vis- 

 ited this field for the past seven thousand years. The proofs of 

 the photographer fade and go out to nothing, the images of the 

 spectroscope die with the light which created them, and the 

 dormant words in the phonograph lisp and stutter with age and 

 much using ; but Nature's record book, which is always open and 

 always getting new additions, holds fast to every fact, no matter 

 how trivial it may seem, and will keep them all there in evidence 

 until the senile earth wrinkles up, like a sun-dried lemon, and 

 floats through space a cold and shriveled husk. This paper mill, 

 I have found, old as it is, measures but one beat of the pendulum 

 on the great clock of geologic time, a clock that was wound up 

 millions of years before man came on earth, and will continue to 

 run for millions of years after the last human being has gone. 



A heavy rainfall came on before I had finished my digging, 

 and when I visit my paper mill again it is flooded with water. 

 Both work and study are useless here at present, and I pass an 

 hour watching the pool, and noting how the added water has 

 increased the activity of the aquatic animals that make it their 

 home. All the wigglers in wigglerdom are out zigzagging them- 

 selves to the top of the water to stick their star- shaped noses up 

 for a bit of air, and then falling to the bottom again to feed on 

 the decaying muck. The pond seems alive with them, and the 

 frogs are having a feast, eating wigglers by the dozen at every 

 swallow. My ducks come waddling up from the house, and enter 

 the pond for a swim ; but, catching sight of the frogs, they con- 

 clude to abandon their bath and have a frog dinner. For the 

 next ten minutes the water is a splashing, boiling sea, lashed into 

 waves by fleeing frogs and pursuing ducks. 



THE report of the British Association's Committee on the Teaching of 

 Science in Elementary Schools represents that while much improvement 

 has been made in the character of the teaching, difficulty still exists in 

 getting it done by experiments and in a truly educational way, rather than 

 as a series of useful but isolated facts. School teachers are generally 

 enthusiastic in their endeavor to obtain a knowledge of science when 

 classes are organized for their benefit. Progress is making in the number 

 of subjects taught in elementary schools and the number of pupils receiv- 

 ing instruction. 



