The Cretaceous Seas 165 



sas, called Vintacrinus socialis. "We enriched 

 many Museums with them. 



"Papa," said Maud, "let us go into the woods 

 to escape the heat. It was beginning to be felt, 

 as the sun has climbed over the trees, and the 

 heat beats upon the dry sands. We first entered 

 a hard and soft wood forest, composed lg,rgely of 

 Sassafras, Magnolia, Linden, Birch in endless 

 variety, Cinnammon, Sweet Gum, and many 

 other of the first trees with heart and bark like 

 our existing forests of the twentieth century. 

 There was a thick underbrush of wild roses and 

 aralia vines, with their beautiful three and five 

 lobed dentate leaves. The brooks were lined with 

 rushes, and ferns and other familiar vegetation. 

 We could see deeper in the forest the stately Red- 

 wood in serried ranks, as far as the eye could 

 reach; colonades of God's first temple. Here in- 

 deed we found the coveted shads. The trunks 

 like Gothic columns lifted their stately forms two 

 hundred feet on high, with densely packed 

 crowns of living green, that cut ofE the direct 

 rays of the sun. They filtered through like those 

 through stained glass filling the woods with tint- 

 ed and mysterious light. "How grand," I cried, 

 "to live so close to God and His great heart, Na- 

 ture's heart. God is the very embodiment, every- 

 where of nature, even 'the spacious firmament on 

 high, and all the blue etheral sky. And spangled 

 heavens a shining frame, there great original 

 proclaim.' There, Maud, do you see the damp 



