The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-08-04


scaly backs are raised over its surface. Its
numerous crocodieans are astir; aud now they
quit the stream and we see its thick hedge-like
lines of equisetacee open and again close, as
they rustic through, to scour, in quest of prey,
the dark meadows that line its banks. There
are tortoises that will this evening find their
protective armor of carapace and plastron all
too weak, and close their long lives of centu
ries. And now we saunter downwards to the
shore, and see the ground-swell breaking white
in the calm against ridges of coral scarce less
white. The shores are strewed with shells Of.
pearl-the whorled Ammonite and the Nauti-
lus; and amid the CLEAN of ganoidal scales,
reflected from the green depths beyond, we may
see the phosphoric trail of the Belemnite, and
its path is over shells of strangeform and name
"But, 10 yet another monster. A snake
like form, surmo united by crocodilean head,
rises high out of the water within yonder coral
ledge, and the fiery, sinister eyes peer inqui
ringly round, as if in search of prey. The body
is but dimly seen, but it is short and bulky,
compared with the swan-like neck, and mount
ed on paddles instead of limbs; SO that the en-
tire creature, wholly unlike anything which
now exists, has been Gkened to a boa constric-
tor threaded through the body of turtle. We
have looked upon the Plesiosdu,7ts. And now,
outside the ledge there is huge crocodilean
head raised, and monstrous eye, huger than
that of any other living creature-for it meas
ures full foot across-glares upon the slim
mer and less powerful reptile, and in an instant
the long neck and small head disappear. That
monster of the immense eye-an eye so con-
structed that its focus can be altered at will,
and made to comprise either near or distant
objects, and the organ itself adapted either to
examine microscopically or to explore as a tel
escope-is another bepaddled reptile of the sea,
the IcjtthyoSauraS, or fish lizard. But the night
comes on, and the shadows of the woods and
rocks deepen; there are uncouth sounds along
the beach and in the forest and new monsters
of yet stranger shape are dimly discovered,
moving amid the uncertain gloom. Reptiles,
reptiles, reptiles-fying, swimming, waddling,
walking-the age is that of the cold-blooded,
ungenial reptile. And now the moon rises IN
clouded majesty and now her red wake bright
ems in one long strip of the dark sea and we
may mark where the Cetiosaurus, sort of rep.
tilean whale, comes into view as it crosses the
lighted track, and is straightway lost in the
gloom"
Heaven be praised that Adam was not made
till lizards and frogs had dwindled down to a
respectable smalness.
The world in her lusty youth, in her wild,
dank, gigantic infancy, has for us a strange
fascination. No fleecy cloud of June morn
ing, floating through ever so blue sky, inter
ests us so deeply as the scurrying cloud that
hurled its drops, slantwise, on the mud, mil
lion years ago. Old things have passed away,
and all things have become new. The giants that
were on the earth in those days have died, body
and race. Trees have grown timid and cling
to the earth; but still that soft mud, changed
by mysterious forces to unyelding rock, pre-
serves the indentations Of that passing shower,
the footprints Of those unwieldy giants, with
the distinctness of yesterday. Just as clearly
as we read the printed page, may we read the
record of the rocks-records perchance, of a
world that lived, and moved, and had its being,
before the morning stars sang together, and all
the sons ofGod shouted for JOY.
One more extract must close our notice:
" dare not speak of the scenery of the pc
Rod. We may imagine, however, dark at
mosphere of steam and vapor, which for age
asE s WITCH s 5f "a Of 6r starr
penetrates; oceans of thermal water, heated in
thousand centres to the boiling point low,
half-molten islands, dim through the fog, and
scarce more fixed than the waves themselves,
that heave and tremble under the impulsons of
the igneous agencies; roaring geysers, that
ever and anon throw up their intermittent Jets
of boiling fluid, vapor, and thick steam, from
these tremulous lands; and, in the dim outskirts
of the scene, the red CLEAN of fire, shot forth
from yawning cracks and deep chasms, and
that bears aloft fragments of molten rock and
clouds of ashes. All is fiery, and yet dark-a
solitary hell, without suffering or SIM"
The Eclectic Magazine for August, 1889
IL Al n