230 



THE DESERT 



by suns. Yet in spite of all it has endured. It 

 remains a factor in Nature's plan. It main- 

 tains its types and out of its desolation it brings 

 forth increase that the species may not perish 

 from the face of the earth. 



And yet in the fulness of time Nature de- 

 signs that this waste and all of earth with it 

 shall perish. Individual, type, and species, all 

 shall pass away ; and the globe itself become as 

 desert sand blown hither and yon through 

 space. She cares nothing for the individual 

 man or bird or beast ; can it be thought that 

 she cares any more for the individual world ? 

 She continues the earth-life by the death of the 

 old and the birth of the new ; can it be thought 

 that she deals differently with the planetary 

 and stellar life of the universe ? Whence come 

 the new worlds and their satellites unless from 

 the dust of dead worlds compounded with the 

 energy of nebulae ? Our outlook is limited in- 

 deed, but have we not proof in our own moon 

 that worlds do die ? Is it possible that its 

 bleached body will never be disintegrated, will 

 never dissolve and be resolved again into some 

 new life ? And how came it to die ? What 

 was the element that failed fire, water, or at- 

 mosphere ? Perhaps it was water. Perhaps it 



