30 
THE SILURIAN BEACH. 
plants were created when the thought of God first 
expressed itself in organic forms, to hold in one’s 
hand a bit of stone from an old sea-beach, hard- 
ened into rock thousands of centuries ago, and 
studded with the beings that once crept upon its 
surface or were stranded there by some retreating 
wave, is even of deeper interest to men than the 
relics of their own race, for these things tell more 
directly of the thoughts and creative acts of God. 
Standing in the neighborhood of Whitehall, 
near Lake George, one may look along such a 
sea-shore, and see it stretching westward and 
sloping gently southward as far as the eye can 
reach. It must have had a very gradual slope, 
and the waters must have been very shallow ; 
for at that time no great mountains had been up- 
lifted, and deep oceans are always the concomi- 
tants of lofty heights. We do not, however, 
judge of this by inference merely ; we have an 
evidence' of the shallowness of the sea in those 
days in the character of the shells found in the 
Silurian deposits, which shows that they belonged 
in shoal waters. 
Indeed, the fossil remains of all times tell us 
almost as much of the physical condition of the 
world at different epochs as they do of its animal 
and vegetable population. When Robinson Cru- 
soe first caught sight of the footprint on the sand, 
he saw in it more than the mere footprint, for it 
