Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1890-10-03

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1HGNs1MN&SSa populous M
s. TSszgSSsAGM pires, amid the
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of pondero Il S
machines, visit with us prophets,
priests, and kings: but the treasures
and beauties of the fathomless depths
of water remain as sealed book to we
terrestrial mortals, and for grandeur
and sublimity, awe inspiring wonders
and horrors on horrors, all things seen
above are not to be compared to what
old ocean can show.
At the bottom of shallow oceans it
seems like one vast plain, whose sur
face is unbroken by knolls or any un-
dulations whatever. Down deep we
must crawl, we cannot walk: no dan
ger of projections or steppes here; no
diversity of peak, and gorge, and
plateau. On the top of the sandy
surface is slime not unlike what we
see on the gravel of the slow-running
inland streams. If we are not eau
tious we will be mired in the Gfobig-
erina and the Pieropod ooze-these
are rather long-legged words, I'll
admit, but one cannot we'll avoid them
occasionally-the results of precipi-
tation from the infinit esimal popula-
ton which have spent their brief lives,
long to them, of course. in the sun
shine on the surface, perhaps gladden.
ing the eyes of naturalists and tick
ling the palates of their rapacious
superiors, a chalky ooze, the accumu-
lations of countless centuries, per-
chance time that will belittle by
comparison the dim cycles of eternity,
itself so long foretold.
Oh, what study! what means of
developing the perceptive faculties Of
the human race, to cipher, without
analogy, these vast problems Of life
and nature! The continuation of the
chalk cliffs of England-dear old
merrie England-with its accumula-
ton of wealth, power, and aristocracy
once an abysmal sea bottom like the
one to which you are invited to visit
in your imagination on this occasion.
Away down in these profound depths
the ooze had changed to reddish
clay. The results of chemical reac-
ton modern scientists are unable to
approach in nicely and accuracy, but
what is going on ceaselessly in the
gigantic laboratories of nature, and this
very remarkable product is worldwide
in its distribution. Paradoxical and in
consistent though it may seem,
and wonderful to contemplate, on this
sandy, Shiny and level plain may be
seen the dust blown down the throats
of volcanoes and foated by the trade
winds around half the circumference
from Krahatva, after floating year in
the upper air, and painting ruddy
glow in a hundred sunset skies that
painters have We'd with each other to
produce. Here falls the meteoric
dust-the ashes of .burnt-out meteors
that flew swiftly for thousand years
through the interplanetary spaces
| dust that flashed upon the vision of
man in the days of the earliest empires;
aye, "when the morning stars sung to-
gether" in auld lang syne-mingled
with the cosmic dust newly arrived
from its slow journey down through
the dark and silent and motionless
depths of this mighty ocean, now
teeming with its varied forms of or
ganic life.
We ore enraptured, awe-stricken.
We stand and gaze out into the impen-
etrable blackness and chill which rest
against us like bodies Embedded in a
wall of masonry. Days may pass,
months and years, and not sound
comes out of these oceanic solitudes
which encompass us. No CLEAN re-
minds us that nature is not dead. We
stand thousand years and nothing
stirs; nothing in these voiceless
depths, these vast plains of death,
though above us sweep the still ma
Jestic currents which bring frosts from
the pole.
This mud which impedes our foot
steps is the dust of centuries, which
has been gathering since the ocean de-
scended to take possession of its mys-
ferrous bed, an act which shut three
| fifths of the worlds surface from the
| observation of man. Mingled with
this mud are the relics of larger crea-
lures which have lived in the sea
where the snnlighs cheers It's popula-
tlon--teeth of sharks, ear bones of
whales. not the accumulations OF yes
terday or of century. These are the
relics OF creatures whose race have
died OUTER ia y whales, the repre-
sentatives Of past cycles Of geological
history. No changes take place here.
Cold and darkness pre- ent decay.
Here by the side of the week, of the
last winter are the hard parts of the
! creatures which dwelt somewhere in
+; the ages before man .,pcared.
Dead ruins Of extinct types, I said
nay, these forms are not all dead; the
realm is still inhabited. Here are
crinoids-paleozoic crinoids which have
come down through all the ages of