THE TKIUMPH OF LIFE 



to life the power to suddenly construct this 

 mountain of chalk. But we think of the coral 

 reef. To life is added the unconquerable assist- 

 ance of time. Profound was the myth and full 

 of meaning that painted Chronos, the god of 

 time, with an hour glass filled with sand. Given 

 the millions upon millions of years of time and 

 out of the sand glass these snow flakes of the 

 foraminifera will pour forth continuously over 

 a quarter of the surface of the e&rth, until at 

 last those giant chalk mountains cKe Cordilleras 

 extend out of the previous oeedn depths and 

 plateaus of Gaurisankar height rise above the 

 ocean surface. 



What the coral accompLife>hes in tire confined 

 space of the circle surrounding the inland the 

 forming of rock by a deposit of a layer of mor- 

 tar of stone-like cement — that the million years 

 of continuous fall of dust composed of animal 

 lime flakes does. It forms an enormous cement 

 column of mountain height, which like a metal 

 band lies over one-fourth of the total savface 

 of the planet. Indeed, with the changes that 

 have taken place in the ocean bottom during the 

 lapse of geological ages on this planet the whole 

 surface has finally been covered with a crust of 

 lime snow. 



Once more we are not dreaming. Our hand 

 that IS here grasping the rock foimdation of the 

 earth in touching this lime crust of the planet 

 112 



