106 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
After a thousand hours all the surroundings 
had changed. New leaves had sprouted, flowers 
faded and turned to fruit, the moon had twice 
attained her full brightness, our earth and sun 
and the whole solar system had swept headlong 
a full two-score million miles on the endless swing 
toward Vega. Only the roots and the crane- 
flies remained. A thousand hours had appar- 
ently made no difference to them. The roots 
might have been the granite near by, fashioned 
by primeval earth-flame, and the flies but vibrat- 
ing atoms within the granite, made visible by 
some alchemy of elements in this weird Rim of 
the World. 
And so a new memory is mine; and when one 
of these insects comes to my lamp in whatever 
part of the world, fluttering weakly, legs break- 
ing off at the slightest touch, I shall cease to 
worry about the scientific problems that loom too 
great for my brain, or about the imperfection 
of whatever I am doing, and shall welcome the 
crane-fly and strive to free him from this fatal 
passion for flame, directing him again into the 
night; for he may be looking for a dark pocket 
in a root, a pocket on the Edge of the World, 
where crane-flies may vibrate with their fellows 
