INGONISH, BY LAND AND SEA. 53 



was no hurry ; and if I cut inshore any farther 

 we should go on the rocks. So I eased my 

 frantic stroke, and watched the phosphorescence 

 play in my oars' eddies. In the sky, bright 

 masses ploughed their way through our air, im- 

 pelled by an unknown force, driven from an 

 unknown distance, and aiming for an unknown 

 fate. In the sea, bright atoms ploughed their 

 way through the water and glowed in soft 

 splendor. The meteors are inorganic, dead 

 mysteries. The phosphorescence is an organic, 

 living mystery. Yet it is no more impossible to 

 imagine the history and future of a body per- 

 petually traveling through endless space than 

 to try to count the numbers of these phosphor- 

 escent myriads. Generally I have the feeling 

 that science is bringing us nearer to a perception 

 of what the vast creation is which surrounds 

 us, but at times the greater truth flashes before 

 my eyes, that what we are really learning is 

 not more than a drop in the limitless ocean of 

 fact. 



The row back to the lighthouse seemed 

 shorter than the voyage out, partly because we 

 really went faster, and partly because we had 

 less detail to look at, now that the night had 

 covered the beauties of the many-toned cliffs 

 and the distant mountains. When we shot 

 through the gut from the bay to the inner basin, 



