32 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 



time, compared with the vast stretches of geo- 

 logical duration, was not so very long ago, for 

 these mountains are all young mountains. The 

 time was when Jurassic saurians — those repulsive 

 ruffians of that rude old time — represented the 

 highest intelligence and civilisation of the known 

 universe. There were no men and women in the 

 world, not even savages, when our ape-like fore- 

 fathers wandered and wondered through the awe- 

 some silences of primeval wilds ; there were no 

 railroads, steamboats, telegraphs, telephones, type- 

 writers, harvesters, electric lights, nor sewing 

 machines; no billionaires nor bicycles, no social- 

 ists nor steam-heat, no * watered stock ' nor 

 'government by injunction,' no women's clubs, 

 captains of industry, labour unions, nor * yellow 

 perils ' — there was none of these things on the 

 earth a hundred years ago. All things have 

 evolved to be what they are — the continents, 

 oceans, and atmospheres, and the plants and 

 populations that live in and upon them. 



There will come a time, too, looking forward 

 into the future, when what we see now will be 

 seen no more. As we go backward into the past, 

 the earth in all of its aspects rapidly changes; 

 the continents dwindle, the mountains melt, and 

 existing races and species disappear one after 

 another. The farther we penetrate into the past, 

 the stranger and the more different from the 

 present does everything become, until finally we 

 come to a world of molten rocks and vapourised 

 seas without a creeping thing upon it. As it has 



