THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



mony and equipoise which the rainbow indicates! 

 — the sunshine foUoTsdng the shower, the clearing 

 up of the weather, the obscurity and the turmoil suc- 

 ceeded by a cleansed and illuminated air. What 

 aeons of warring elements before the first bit of blue 

 sky appeared ! Countless ages of mist and floods and 

 darkness and sulphurous clouds — a rising-up of the 

 deep and a falling-down of the heavens — before 

 the earth saw the first smile of clear sky and the 

 first bow of promise set in the clouds. Not till the 

 cooling rains began to fall could life appear upon 

 the land; not till the sun had penetrated the mists 

 and gases that must have enveloped the earth for 

 millions of years, could the rainbow be set on high. 



It is a pleasing fancy, and it may be a scientific 

 fact, that there were no flowering plants- till the 

 rainbow appeared. Of course the laws of optics have 

 always been the same, but the conditidns deter- 

 mining their operation as we see them are recent, 

 geologically speaking. The many-colored flowering 

 plants did not appear till long after the overburdened 

 and superheated air had been cleared of its vapor 

 and carbon dioxide by the rank vegetable growths 

 that gave us our coal beds, that is, till long after 

 Carboniferous times — probably late in Mesozoic 

 times. With clear skies and sunshine the develop- 

 ment of bright flower-petals would take place, and 

 with these conditions the bow would appear in the 

 clouds. Maybe the rose and the rainbow were bom 

 214 



