Where did Life Begin ? 59 



too, in obedience to the universal order of 

 things, she was first to reach maturity, first to 

 pass all the subdivisions of life-bearing clim- 

 ate, and finally the lowest heat degree In the 

 great life-range, and so the first to reach 

 sterility, old age, degeneration, and death. 

 And now cold and lifeless, — wrapped in her 

 snowy winding sheet, the once fair mother of 

 us all, rests in the frozen embrace of an ice- 

 bound and everlasting sepulchre. 



