THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 



here and sinks down there. Like water waves 

 the high folds creep up, here building hills and 

 mountains, there forming deep ditches, ravines, 

 valleys and abysses. Enormous quivers, "earth- 

 quakes," appear, even where the surface appears 

 free from the never-ceasing mass movements. In 

 the course of a thousand years there are formed 

 deep under the never-ending wave play of the 

 water surface, earth waves, with crests and val- 

 leys. Slowly the wave, a rising cliff, falls back, 

 in order to rise anew in some other place. One jl 

 day this fortune happened to the cliff beneath f 

 this coral island. It sank. If this had hap- 

 pened quickly, the coral dome resting upon it 

 would have been at once drowned in the dark 

 water depths. The coral polyps would have died 

 and disappeared. But since it happened slowly 

 it offered an opportunity for a grand race — one 

 of the most marvelous battles of life. 



During the time the cliff was sinking the coral 

 generations piled their tiny supports upwards. 

 The lime peaks rose layer upon layer. Now one 

 hundred and fifty feet of old lime structure lay 

 below the life boundary of the coral polyps 

 upon the sinking cliff. Thousands of years 

 passed and passed. The cliff finally went down 

 depressed by the six thousand feet of depth to 

 the level of the ground below. The pyramid of 

 coral lime once only one hundred and fifty feet 

 high is now fully six thousand feet high. But 

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