UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
rock in those early geologic ages. Dana thinks this 
conglomerate gives us an idea of the seashore work of 
that period. Only on a seashore could the crushed ma- 
terial have been sorted and distributed in this way. 
According to the published views of a natural 
philosopher on the Pacific Coast, this rain of rock 
material from the heavens is no myth. He believes 
that the earth in its early history was surrounded 
by a series of numerous concentric rings of floating 
cosmic matter, like the rings of Saturn, and that 
from time to time these rings collapsed and their 
material fell to earth helping to make up the vast 
series of stratified rocks. This theory certainly sim- 
plifies some of the problems of the geologist. My 
Catskills did not have to go down under the sea to 
get this coat of mail of quartz pebbles, or these al- 
ternate layers of red and gray sandstone, and the 
question of the abrupt ending and beginning of the 
different series is easily solved; as is also the larger 
question of where all the diverse material of our 
enormous system of stratified rock, reckoned by some 
geologists to be not less than twenty miles thick in 
North America, came from. In some parts of Scot- 
land, the old red sandstone, according to Geikie, is 
twenty thousand feet thick. This explanation of 
the California theorist gives us all this material, and 
gives it in the original packages. I wish I could 
believe it true — and be thankful that there are no 
more rings to collapse! 
50 
