XII 
SEQUELS 
TropicaL midges-of sorts live less than a day 
—sequoias have felt) their sap quicken at the 
warmth of fifteen hundred springs. Somewhere 
between these extremes, we open our eyes, look 
about us for a time and close them again. Mod- 
ern political geography and shifts of government 
give us Methusalistic feelings—but a glance at 
rocks or stars sends us shuddering among the 
other motes which glisten for a moment in the 
sunlight and then vanish. 
We who strive for a little insight into evolu- 
tion and the meaning of things as they are, for- 
ever long for a glimpse of things as they were. 
Here at my laboratory I wonder what the land 
was like before the dense mat of vegetation came 
to cover every rock and grain of sand, or how 
the rivers looked when first their waters trickled 
to the sea. 
All our stories are of the middles of things,— 
without beginning or end; we scientists are 
274 
