246 J. C. MERRIAM EARTH SCIENCES/ BACKGROUND OF HISTORY 



them this record is not written in doubtful hieroglyphs and symbols. It 

 represents the imprints of living feet that have never ceased to advance 

 in unbroken procession over a trail that winds upward through the ages. 

 From one glimpse at footprints on these sands of time, a poet, in the 

 person of Longfellow, gave to all generations a Psalm of Life, which 

 has found response in an ever-widening circle of human hearts. Long- 

 fellow^s poem, suggested by the antiquity of the print of a foot upon the 

 Connecticut sandstone, was based upon a splendid lesson of analogy. He 

 emphasized for us the idea that the influence of each life may reach out 

 undreamed distances through space and time to make the forlorn and 

 shipwrecked take heart again. 



Pointing in the same direction, but of infinitely deeper meaning than 

 the lines of the poet, is the reality of the story, the sermon, the poem 

 which the geologist sees, and which must of necessity reach its recog- 

 nition through his eyes and its expression through his voice. The foot- 

 prints and the stages of the path on which they appear are to us not 

 merely evidences of an unending influence; they are tangible proofs of 

 progress from eon to eon which might well help a forlorn world to take 

 heart once more. We may not understand the method by which better- 

 ment has come, but we see the stages of its movement, and realize that, 

 whatever struggles the future may have in store, we shall always be 

 credited with a margin of safety when we risk ourselves in the cause 

 which makes for uplift in the widest sense. 



Without assuming more than is involved in the field of his daily work, 

 the geologist stands before the world as the interpreter of one view of a 

 great truth fundamental to human interest and beliet This truth should 

 not be overemphasized ; it should not be underestimated. It was in large 

 measure this depth of view that stimulated Darwin to his great construc- 

 tive work, giving biology and the whole range of human thought his 

 progressive evolution. It stands as the background out of which history 

 emerges and against which its interpreted movement must always be 

 projected. The world needs now, as never before, a wide and deep view, 

 and a full understanding of all that may concern mankind. The student 

 of earth sciences was once a contributor to the wider philosophy of nature. 

 It may be his duty now to make sure, not only that his influence is felt 

 in advancement of material welfare, but that he serve also to point out 

 the lesson of the foundations of the earth, and to show that strength may 

 still come from the hills. 



