The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1894-10-20
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20. 1894
WHAT SHALL COME AFTER HzMg

Man IS at best an egOClsLlcal Creature.
Surprising all other forms of animal
life in intelligence, it is quite natural
that he should draw the line betwixt
his reasoning powers and the instinct,
which he acredits the balance of brute
creation with. Not only does he claim
for himself that he is the highest type |
of animal creation that has ever existed,
but he claims also that nothing higher
Is possible. The autobiography of the |
world, as written in the rocks, will not
bear out this self-aggrandiseme In
times SO remote that we write of them
only as an aeon, an indefinite period ex-
tending over thousands of years, and
distinguished from some other indefinite
aeon by the subsidence or upheayal of
continent, or some other change of the
visible world; in these remote times,
when the first of these indefinite aeons,
of which the sedimentary rocks tell us,
held sway, there was but one form of
life. In the Laurentian and Huonian
age the protozoans alone existed, form
of animal life so low that it would be as
difficult to tell as it is with the sponges
vegetable kingdom.
In the Cambrian and Silurian ages a
higher form of life had been called into
existence, as we can prove by their re-
mains found in the Trenton and Niagara
periods. These show in the earlier sys-
tenn of the Paleezoic aeon, which in the
Devonian system also shows still
higher type of life in the fishes, which
in turn, followed by the Carboniferous
systems, shows a still further advanced
form of animal life in the amphibians.
The Jurassic and Cretaceous ages of the
Mesozoic age bring reptiles and birds
upon the scene, followed in the Tertiary
system by mammals, and these in the
Quarternary system, which is our own,
by Man.
Is it possible the end of all progress
has been attained, and that the perfec-
tion of animal life has been reached in
man? If so. the perfection of nature is
imperfect indeed. It may be hundreds
of years before the superior animal, yet
in the womb of the future. shall be
brought forth to rule the earth in place
of man, whose history shall be in turn
written in the rocks for the future, and
yet higher animal to read; but we have
no reason to doubt but that that time
will come. The human mind cannot
grasp the immensity of time since the
first protozoan held sway on the earth
the highest type of animal life. The
first mammals existed in the Tertiary
period, which is a very recent one; but
yesterday, as compared to the Huronian,
and yet that was long ago. To illus
trate: Here at our own doors nature
has written the history OF that later
period. The high plains on each side ot
the John Day river were formed in the
Tertiary period, the one before that in
which we exist, At one time there
were vast marshes, which have been
slowly filled with mud washed from the
hills which have been worn away. In
these mud banks the bodies of the ami
mails that existed at the time have beer
preserved, petrifying or fossilizing as the
mud turned to rock. In time those
mud banks were covered to the depth O
nearly two thousand feet, and after tha
was done the John Day river, patiently
working, wore away the everything rocks
cut its way down, down a thousand
fifteen hundred, aye, two thousand feet
and again brought to light the bone
buried SO long ago. 1t took a long tim
for nature, by her slow processes, to frs
cover and then uncover those relics of
race of animals extinct, as far as thi
country is concerned, at least. It tool
long time to print and bind that book
and an equally long one to open it
pages. But this happened, countin
time as geology reekons it, but yester
day. at2 '4
What shall succeed man? We do no
know; but that wise Nature which pre-
pared the earth for its inhabitants il
turn; which, starting with nothing, ha
produced man, must not. be considers
powerless to make a yet more perfec
creature. Well may man, realizing hoy
brief his rule of the; earth has been, an
how vast the time that other forms G
life have been.the ''lords of creation, ,''ex
claim with Solomon, 'tWho shall sho,
him what shall come after him?"
Mr.. Nathan Straus, the Tamman
nonniuae for mavor of Neu York Nitv