TIME AND CHANGE 
and other organic rocks are made. When these 
rocks are again lifted to the surface and disinte- 
grated into soil, then the debt of the sea to the land 
is paid. This process, this cycle of soil loss and soil 
growth, has gone on through all time, and must con- 
tinue as long as the rain continues to fall, or as long 
as the sea continues to send its tax-gatherers to the 
land. In this great cycle of give and take of the 
elements, the affairs of men cut but a momentary 
figure; how puny they are, how transient! How the 
great changes, which in time amount to revolutions, 
go on over our heads and under our feet, and we 
rarely heed them, and are powerless to stay them! 
A summer shower carries the soil of my side-hill, 
which is mainly disintegrated Silurian rock and 
shale, into the river, and some millions of years 
hence, when it has become stratified rock, and been 
lifted up into the light of day, some other, and, I 
trust, wiser husbandman, will be gathering his har- 
vest from it, and be worried over the downpour 
that robs him of it. The farmer’s worry is bound to 
come back with the soil, and be passed along with it. 
