44 The Bible of Nature 



than we knew, and we enjoy the Northern Lights 

 better next time. 



We ascend the hill among the woods on an 

 autumn afternoon, and we look down on a sea of 

 gold mingled with fire — all the glory of the with- 

 ering leaves. Our botanical friend tells us of the 

 breaking up of the green grains into chlorophyll 

 and xanthophyll, how the latter is affected by the 

 acidity of the cell-sap, how a special death-pig- 

 ment, anthocyanin, may make its appearance, and 

 so on; all the glory seems at first to fade into chem- 

 istry. But if we question the botanist a little we 

 find that he has given us more than we have lost. 

 We see that the hard-worked leaves must die, that 

 it is better for the tree that they should fall, that 

 they first surrender everything that they have that 

 is worth having, till little more than skeleton and 

 waste is left, that they are transfigured in dying, 

 becoming for a brief space almost floral, and that 

 their brilliance is a literal beauty for ashes. 



Science is always trying to show us the wheels 

 that go round, the wheels within wheels, and 

 though the movement of the hands of the world- 

 clock is not so mysterious as it used to be in the 

 days of our childhood and in the days of our fath- 

 ers, it is certainly more, not less, wonderful. Even 

 when we are shown that the clock we know sprang 

 from a simpler clock and that from a simpler still, 

 the wonder deepens. If we ask Science to tell us 



