106 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



around the frontier of the Middle and Northern States. 

 In this magnificent lagoon the Iron Mountain of Missouri 

 loomed up, as it now does — an island of metal — the apex 

 of an iron cone, whose base rests broadly and deeply on 

 the molten ocean which floats kingdoms and continents 

 from the past eternity to the future. Around its sloping 

 flanks the sediments of the Potsdam period accumulated in 

 horizontal layers, which to-day may be witnessed abutting 

 against the dark sides of the emerging cone of metal. A 

 few other isolated points had thus early been born from 

 the abyss. 



In such a sea — a shoreless sea — lived, and lived in hap- 

 piness, those problematical forms called trilobites, whose 

 remains have been opened from the solid rocks of Wis- 

 consin, Vermont, Canada, and hundreds of other localities. 

 Rather, on such a submarine platform they sported their 

 day, for on all sides — certainly toward the east, south, and 

 west — the waters deepened, as now, to an almost unfath- 

 omable depth, to whose dark recesses life never gnrpes its 

 way (Fig. 38). 



In the progress of the earth's preparation this act of the 

 drama closed, and the curtain fell upon the scene. "The 

 curtain rose, and the scene was changed." The beings 

 which teemed in the waters of the preceding epoch were 

 buried in the ruins of a convulsion which marked the ad- 

 vent of a new aeon. Not an individual of any of the former 

 species outrode the storm. But the sea is now quiet again 

 — more quiet than before. The waters are clearer. The 

 floor of the ocean has settled a few hundred feet deeper, 

 and the conditions of our planet are changed. Lo ! now 

 the clearer and quieter waters are teeming with myriads 

 of new existences, some of which reproduce the family feat- 

 ures of the beings of the preceding period, while others are 

 forms now first revealed upon our planet. Whence come 



