Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1902-08-23

ess of Evolution.
Your life to mine is as a second to a
thousand years. / will let you know
that in my time have seen such sights
as would make you gasp in astonish-
meiit. Once, IN untold ages past, long
before man had appeared on this old
world, was alive. Yes, the dirty old
piece of coal was a living thing in those
dim, distant ages. a thing of beauty,
too-a thing TO be admired was q
fern. Not such q paltry thing as you
decorate your homes with and grow In
little earthenware affairs. My trunk
alone measured five feet across.
Yet / was nothing out of the ordinary.
In those days there were many little
plants forty feet or so in height. Ev-
cry bit of coal you toss about in such
needless fashion once was a living
plant-a plant which grew and -four
ished. even as your plants of today
grow and flourish. But in these de-
generate days plants are poor. feeble
little things. Plants were plants in
those days. We had no petted and
pampered ferns. We had no houses of
glass. artifcially kept warm SO. that
the poor little dears shouldn't get cold.
Those were the days Of real ferns, of
healthy ferns free from oil newfangled
nonsense about fertilizers and soils and
aspects and such childish weaknesses.
In those early days the earth was not
as it is today. II was hotter. for 1t
had cooled from a globe Of molten rock.
Its atmosphere was heavy with warm
vapors; close and oppressive, you would
call 1t, but 1t just suited us, as we grew
and luxuriated in 1t. The earth's crust
was thin and heaved about, gradually
raising vast continents from the bed of
the sea and slowly dragging others
deep into the ocean. 1t was time of
vast changes.
/ grew on the muddy banks of great
pool OF water, which was fed by slug
gish streaf ms and bordered by mon
strous reeds. On the other side stretch
ed vast swamp and a dark forest of
tangled vegetation. For hundreds Of
miles there was no break to this forest
beyond few boys and pools of brackish
water The sun shone hot upon me, so
no wonder l grew we'll in this humid
atmosphere. Then there We're frightful
storms. when mighty trees were flung
of the pool This had gone on ages be,
fore appeared above ground; it went
on ages after. The result was that the
bottom of the pool was mass of fallen
trees. The newly felled trees pressed
on the bottom ones, and after thou
sands of years the water, the mud, the
heat and the pressure turned the
mighty beds of vegetable matter into
what you call coal.
In the dense forest it was somewhat
the same. Trees We're thrown down
by hurricanes; fresh ones grew and fell
victims to storms. So it-went on for
long centuries until the last forest grew
on the top of u great thickness of bur
led trees, ferns and MOSES. Amid this
exuberant vegetation were many fan
tastic and uncouth animals. Round
about me they made the forest resound
with their hIdeous bellowings. They
were so strangely shaped that could
not well describe them to you. Even
some of the flies had wings half a foot
long from tip to tip.
One day / saw a connection in the
midst of the lake far away from me.
The bed rose up and belched forth
steam and ashes and molten rock. In
the years that followed the fluid rock
rolled down the sides of the volcano
into the water below. Mighty clouds
of steam arose, and as the vapor con-
densed it fell upon us as warm rain
This is why / grew so well and why
the vegetation around me was so rank
ly luxuriant.
Many years after the land began to
sink Slowly It went down; slowly
the water closed over our heads until
all the mighty forests were deep under
the sea. Thus we stopped for count
less years. and heavy bed of sand ac-
cumulated above us. Then, just as
slowly. we arose until we formed
vast elevated land. Then came other
forests-trees whose limbs were tan
gled with enormous festoons and gar
lands of strange climbing plants Ter
rible thunderstorms alone broke the ST.
lence of these wooded solitudes save
when some mighty fern crashed to the
ground or when the wind tore down
young branches aud hurled them into
the swamps.
So all went on anew, as of old. and
the continent sank once more below
the waters of the ocean, taking with it
the beds of buried verdure. Yet again
it rose. and again it sank. So layer
upon layer of plants and Of sand were
formed-vast layers, which took ages
unthinkable to form-until there was
depth of 10000 feet of hard baked wood
and sand, of coal and dirt. Look at
me. and you will find that you can
trace my markings. In every pit you
can find hundreds Of delicate fern
leaves and MOSES as perfect as when
alive You can see even the veins of
the fragile fronds, so beautifully press
ed are they. Dirty. old coal. indeed!
1t was the sun which made me.
absorbed his rays then. When you
burn me. give them back again.
am a mass of bottled sunshine. Do you