Who that was there can ever forget it? In my own memory that throng of

the worthy, the beautiful, the gay of a great city will stand as the one

fulfilment which Fate has given me of many Oriental promissory dreams,

most of which she has failed to honor. In that great company you might

have traced all the circles of that city's growth, as you may trace a

tree's history in its rings. That lady there was the first white baby

born here, where now over two hundred thousand human beings reside. Here

are the pioneers who filled the first log-huts on the city's site,

until they overflowed through the roofs. And here is an inner circle of

children, and an outer one of grandchildren, about the two who are the

heart of this beautiful celebration. Can that lovely, erect, blooming

lady be a bride of fifty years? Looking at her, one would say it is a

great and unnecessary mistake of ours to grow old. But more closely must

we look at that quaint old man by her side. Lately he has passed away;

but every day of his long life left a trace worthy to be noted well. His

eighty years and twenty-five days of life comprise an epitome of the

history and growth of a great community. Not so would you at first

interpret that plain old man; though, to a knowing eye, that eye, clear

with looking at the duty that lies nearest, that mouth, telling of

patient, unimpulsive energy, that broadness about the brow, would be

guaranties of a marked life.

And now for my story, which you must let me tell in a rambling way; for

any systematic biography of that man would be like putting one of his

own Catawba-vines into your herbarium.

I introduce you to a fair-haired, handsome youth, on the deck of a small

steamboat, which is bearing him to his fortune in the great West. He is

penniless. His father was wealthy; but in the war he was a Tory, and, in

the confiscation of his property, his sin was visited upon his son. But

he was not the boy to repine, with youth and the great West before him.

And now as from the steamer's deck he sees a fine landscape with a few

log-houses on it, he believes that it is one day to be a great city, and

concludes to stop there. So he is put ashore with his trunk.

He has already determined to study law. He goes to the one judge

who resides there, and is taken as a student into his office. More

log-houses are built; a court-house is erected; and presently that

institution at sight of which the shipwrecked Englishman fell on his

knees and thanked God he was in a Christian land--the gallows--made its

appearance. So the young man had a fair practice.

The records of the West, if they are ever written, will testify how

often whimsical Fortune thrusts her favors on men against their will.

This very judge with whom our youth studied law became environed with

pecuniary difficulties, and wished once to satisfy a claim of a few

hundred dollars by deeding away a sheep-pasture of a few acres, which

was of no sort of use to him. But when he went to get his wife's

signature to the conveyance, she burst into tears; she knew, she said,

that the pasture was worthless; but she had in her childhood heard there

the tinkling of the bells of her father's sheep; it was very foolish,

she knew, but now that they had all passed away, the bells over in the

pasture tinkled on in her memory, and she hated to give it up. The kind

husband would not insist, but went sadly to his work. It was not long

before the sheep-pasture was worth a million dollars! Sentiment, you

see, is not always an unproductive article.

But this case was scarcely so curious as that which presently thrust a

goodly capital on the hands of our young law-student. His first case in

the court was that of a horse-thief, whom he induced a jury to acquit.

When he came to his client for a fee, the scapegrace whispered that

he had nothing on earth wherewith to pay the fee except two old

whiskey-stills and--_a horse_. When he heard this last word, the

lawyer's conscience gave him a twinge. After a moment's reflection, he

said,--"You will need the horse; and you had best make him take you as

far as possible from this region of country. I must be satisfied with

the whiskey-stills." It was not for a long time that he thought even to

inquire about the stills. When he did so, he found them in possession

of a man who implored him not to take them away, and promised to pay

something for them. Finding that he could not do this, he begged our

hero to accept as payment for them a few acres of barren land, which,

with great reluctance, he agreed to do. Erelong the tide of emigration

set westward, and this land is to-day worth two million dollars!

But his subsequent life showed that the man's fortune was not luck; for

by economy, not by hoarding,--by foresight, and a generous trust to all

laborers who wished to lease lands, his wealth grew to nearly fifteen

million dollars.

When he found that he had enough to live comfortably upon, he retired

from the bar, and devoted himself to horticulture. He found that the

region in which he lived was adapted to the growth of the vine, and

began his experiments, which, during his life, extended to the culture

of more than forty varieties. He laid before the community, from time to

time, a report of his successes, he called on all to come and taste the

wines he made, until the tidings went over the earth, and from Germany,

France, Italy, came vine-dressers and wine-makers, who covered every

hill-side for miles around him with vintages.

Those who came from afar to inquire into this new branch of industry,

for which he had opened the way, were surprised to meet the

millionnaire, the Catawba-Prince, in his plain garb and with his humble

habits.

How many stories I could tell you of this unintentional, odd homeliness

of manner and life, from which he never departed, and which those around

him found it impossible to depart from, even in respect to the style of

the coffin in which he was laid, and the procession which followed him

to the beautiful cemetery! His dress was always that of a man of the

humblest fortunes; and Dame Gossip says that he was so fond of his old

coat, that, when a change became absolutely necessary, his daughters

were obliged to prepare the new one, and substitute it for the old

whilst he was asleep, so that in the morning he should put it on

unconsciously, or, if he discovered the change; must wear the new or

none. The same dame has it that a youth, who afterward became his

son-in-law, having caught sight somewhere of one of the old man's

daughters, desired to know her, and that, in the park, which was open to

all, he met the old gentleman, whom he supposed to be the gardener, and

offered him a bribe, if he would bring the lady out among the roses. The

old man accepted the bribe, and returned with the lady, whom, with a

sly twinkle of the eye, he introduced as "my daughter" to the blushing

youth. And again it is told, that once, on a very warm day, the old man,

having to wait for a friend, sat down on a stone just outside of his own

gate, took off his hat, and, closing his eyes, dozed a little. When he

got up, he found a silver quarter in his hat. Whether it was put there

by some one who really thought he was an object of charity, or by a wag,

the old man appreciated the joke, and, with a smile, put it into the

pocket out of which had to come forty thousand dollars for annual taxes.

These stories may or may not be true; but in some sense such stories

have a certain truth, whether invented or not. They can live and

circulate only in a community where they are characteristic of the

person of whom they are told. Generous men are not pursued by stories of

parsimony; mean men never hear even untrue stories of their generosity.

And this last remark leads me to speak of the relation in which the

wealthiest man of the West stood to the throngs of the poor and the

suffering who surrounded him.

If, in the city, you had gone to the President of the Boorioboola-Gha

Sewing-Circle, or to the Tract-Society Rooms, or to the clergy, and

inquired whether the city's richest man was charitable, you would have

received an ominous shrug in reply. Vainly have they gone to him for any

such charities. Vainly did they go to him for some "poor, but worthy and

Christian woman."

"I will give nothing," he replied; "there are enough who will give to

her; what I have to give shall go to the _unworthy_ poor, whom none

will help,--the Devil's poor, Sir,--those whom Christians leave to the

Devil."

Many a minister has been sorely puzzled by the receipt of a fifty-dollar

bill "for the relief of the depraved." His office was constantly

thronged with outcasts, who were generally relieved by small sums. In

his relations with these people, his simplicity and eccentricity were

noted by all who knew him. Among many stories which I know to be true, I

select the following.

Some six or eight years ago the winter was very cold; the river was

frozen, and all the "wharf-rats" were thrown out of work. A near

relative of the old gentleman came to the city, and passed the night at

his house. After tea he sauntered to the office to take a quiet cigar.

To his surprise, he found it filled with a crowd--more than fifty--of

brawny, beastly-looking men. The presence of the childlike old man, his

face beaming with shrewdness and kindly humor, seemed alone to keep them

from being a mob. His manner to them said,--"You poor wretches, I know

how reckless you are; yet I am not sure but I should be as bad, had I

been exposed to the same bad influences." These houseless vagrants had

been coming every night, while the river was frozen, to get a dime for a

night's lodging.

The young man had been forced by the unpleasantness of the crowd to go

and enjoy his cigar outside. As he sat there, the ugly crowd filed out

quietly, each with his dime, (the clerk distributing,) till the last

man. He seemed to feel very ill-used, and was scarcely clear of the

door-way before he gave vent to his indignation:--"I'll be d----d, if I

don't let Old ---- know that I won't be put off with a five-cent piece

and a three-cent piece! Let me ketch him out, and I'll mash his," etc.,

etc.

Glowing with righteous indignation, and glad of the opportunity, the

young relative rushed in and exclaimed,--

"Mr. ----! I have had many occasions to remonstrate with you on your

indiscriminate charities, your encouragement of beggary and vice. The

wretch who went out last is breathing threats of personal violence

against you, because he has been put off with a five-cent piece and a

three-cent piece!"

How was the indignant remonstrant mortified, when the old man simply

turned his head to the clerk and said,--

"Mark, why did you not give that man his dime?"

"I had given out all the dimes, Sir, and I gave him all I had left."

"See that he gets his extra two cents the next time he comes. I have no

doubt I should have been mad, if I had been in his place."

A forlorn-looking man once came and asked for help.

"I am afraid to give you money. I think I know how you will spend it."

Of course the man protested that strong drink was an abomination unto

him,--that what his nature most craved was "pure, fresh milk."

The old man, with a look in which it would be hard to say whether

shrewdness or credulity predominated, at once hastened to the

milk-cellar and returned with a glass of milk; the fellow swallowed the

dose with an eager reluctance quite comical to behold, but which excited

no movement in the muscles of the old gentleman's face.

On a raw, wet winter's day, a loafer applied for a pair of shoes. He had

on an old, shambling pair, out at both toes. The old Wine-Prince was

sitting with a pair of slippers on, and had his own shoes warming at the

fire.

"Well," said he to the applicant, "you do look rather badly off, for

such a cold, wet day; here, see if these shoes will fit you," handing

his own.

The fellow tried them on and pronounced them a complete fit, and went on

his way rejoicing. The clerk was amused, half an hour after, to see the

old gentleman searching for his shoes and wondering what had become of

them. He was reminded that he had given them to the beggar. On further

inquiry, he found that he had no other pair in the house.

The following significant story was told me by the son of the old man. I

present it in nearly his own words.

"Adjoining me in the country lives an old German who nearly seventy

years ago was _sold_ in New York for his passage. A confectioner of

Baltimore bought him for seven years' service, and he went with his

master to fulfil his obligation. When his time was out, he turned his

face towards the setting sun, and started to seek his fortune. On

arriving in Pittsburg, having no money, he engaged to 'work his way'

down the river on a flat-boat. He stopped at the little village, as our

city then was, and opened a shop. He was skilful, and succeeded. He came

to my father, and bought, on ten years' credit, a place in the country,

where, in course of time, he built a house, and, with my father's

assistance, planted a vineyard. He then gave up all other business but

that of the vine-dresser.

"One day, in the autumn, a few years ago, I overtook the old man on

horseback, on his way to town. After wishing me a cheery good-morning,

he said,--

"'I am on my way to town, to sell your father my wine.'

"'He will be glad to get it; he is buying wine, and yours is made so

carefully that he will be glad to have it.'

"'I mean to sell it to him for fifty cents a gallon.'

"'Oh,' said I, 'don't offer it at that. I know he is paying double that

sum.'

"'Nevertheless, I mean to sell it to him for half a dollar.'

"I looked inquiringly.

"'Well, Sir, I was but a boy when I left Germany; but I was old

enough to remember that a man, after a hard day's work, could go to a

wine-house, and for two cents could get a tumblerful. It did him good,

and he went home to his family fresher and brighter for his wine. He

was never drunk, and never wasted his earnings to appease a diseased

appetite. I want to see that state of things brought about here. Our

poor people drink whiskey. I want them to have cheap wine in its place.

Fifty cents a gallon will pay me well this year for my capital and

labor, and next year I think I can sell it for forty cents.'

"'But, my friend, see how this will work. You will sell your wine to Mr.

---- for fifty cents; and he will send it to his wine-cellar, and they

will bottle it and sell it for all they can get.'

"'That's _their_ lookout,' said the Teuton; 'I shall have done my duty.'

"It was rather hard to get an advantage of my father, but I thought now

I had him. On reaching the city, I sought him out, and told the story

with all its circumstances.

"'Now, Sir, in presence of the example of this old German,--sold in New

York for his passage, faithfully fulfilling the years of his servitude,

working his way to a small competency by savings and industry,--will you

dare to let the world hear of you, a rich man, making a profit on wine?'

"The old man's eye dropped an instant, then he said,--

"'My son, Heaven knows I do not wish to make money out of wine. I have

given much time and much money for the last fifty years to make this

doubtful experiment successful. I have paid high prices for wine, and

used all other means in my power to make it remunerative,--to induce

others to plant vineyards. If I should now take your suggestion and

bring wine down to a low price, I should ruin the enterprise. But let

the extended cultivation of the grape be once firmly established, and

then competition will bring it low enough.'

"'Well,' said I, 'that may be good worldly wisdom; but I like the spirit

of the old Dutchman better, after all.'

"'There I agree with you; for once, you are right.'"

A most careful accountant has shown that his contributions to

grape-culture amounted to one-fourth of his whole fortune: a clear loss

to him, but not to the public.

Though the lips of Christendom repeat, Sunday after Sunday, the warning

that the left hand should not know what the right hand doeth, yet it is

very apt to judge of a man's liberality by the paragraphs concerning him

in the newspapers. The old gentleman once gave his city several acres of

land for an observatory which was to be erected; and there is no doubt

that he had reason to conclude, as have others, that it was the worst,

as it was the most public, charity of his life. That his private

charities were numerous and without self-crediting, the present writer

_happens_ to know. Once, after going through the great wine-cellar where

millions were coined, I went through the barracks in the upper portion

of the same building, where a wretched tenantry of the Devil's poor

lived in squalor. Each of these families was required to pay room-rent

to the millionnaire. As I passed along, I found one man and woman in

wrathful distress. They must pay their rent, or be turned out of their

rooms. The rent was two or three dollars. I said,--

"The old gentleman will not turn you out."

"You do not know him; he will be sure to, if we do not pay him every

cent."

I determined to search him out and represent the case. I could not find

him; but before I concluded my search, I found that the poor people had

been compelled to sell a table and some chairs to pay the rent. The next

day I saw them again, and found them heartily abusing the old man as

"a stingy brute," who would "sell the chairs from under them." Yet I

observed that they had _a new table and three new chairs_. When I asked

them how they came by them, they said they had been sent by an unknown

hand, which they supposed to be mine. A thought struck me, and after

some trouble I ferreted out the fact, that, although the rich old man

had, for reasons connected with the good order of the barracks,

always exacted every cent of the rent from each tenant, whatever the

consequences, he had many times, as in this case, secretly returned more

than it had cost them to pay it. They were left to believe him a hard

man, and often attributed his benefits to societies and persons whose

charity would have been stifled by the whiskey-stench of their rooms.

Thus, then, went on his life, until the day when the Golden Wedding

was to be celebrated. That year, the sons, with the vine-dressers, the

bottlers, corkers, and all, gathered together and said,--

"Come, now! let us this year make a wine that shall be like the nectar

for a true man's soul!"

So, with one accord, they gathered the richest grapes, and selected from

them; then they made the wine-press clean and sweet, and cast the grapes

therein. One great hiss,--a spurt of gold flushed with rubies,--and all

that is acrid is left, all that is rich and sweet is borne away, to be

labelled "GOLDEN WEDDING."

And now, as I taste it, it seems to me flavored beyond all earthly wine,

as if it were the expression of an humble and faithful man, who had a

legitimate object, which he obtained by steadfastness. The wine-makers

maintain, that wine, though long confined in bottles, sympathizes still

with the vines from which it was pressed; and when the season of the

flowering of vines comes, it is always agitated anew. Surely the Catawba

must ever sparkle afresh, when in it, as now, we pledge the memory of

the brave and wise pioneer whose life climbed to its maturity along with

the purple clusters which so had garnered the frost and sunshine of a

life as well as of the seasons.

THE SILURIAN BEACH.

With what interest do we look upon any relic of early human history!

The monument that tells of a civilization whose hieroglyphic records we

cannot even decipher, the slightest trace of a nation that vanished and

left no sign of its life except the rough tools and utensils buried

in the old site of its towns or villages, arouses our imagination and

excites our curiosity. Men gaze with awe at the inscription on an

ancient Egyptian or Assyrian stone; they hold with reverential touch the

yellow parchment-roll whose dim, defaced characters record the meagre

learning of a buried nationality; and the announcement, that for

centuries the tropical forests of Central America have hidden within

their tangled growth the ruined homes and temples of a past race, stirs

the civilized world with a strange, deep wonder.

To me it seems that to look on the first land that was ever lifted above

the waste of waters, to follow the shore where the earliest animals and

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, hardened 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 uplifted, and deep oceans are always

the concomitants 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 Crusoe first caught sight

of the footprint on the sand, he saw in it more than the mere footprint,

for it spoke to him of the presence of men on his desert island. We

walk on the old geological shores, like Crusoe along his beach, and the

footprints we find there tell us, too, more than we actually see in

them. The crust of our earth is a great cemetery where the rocks are

tombstones on which the buried dead have written their own epitaphs.

They tell us not only who they were and when and where they lived, but

much also of the circumstances under which they lived. We ascertain

the prevalence of certain physical conditions at special epochs by the

presence of animals and plants whose existence and maintenance required

such a state of things, more than by any positive knowledge respecting

it. Where we find the remains of quadrupeds corresponding to our

ruminating animals, we infer not only land, but grassy meadows also, and

an extensive vegetation; where we find none but marine animals, we know

the ocean must have covered the earth; the remains of large reptiles,

representing, though in gigantic size, the half aquatic, half

terrestrial reptiles of our own period, indicate to us the existence

of spreading marshes still soaked by the retreating waters; while the

traces of such animals as live now in sand and shoal waters, or in mud,

speak to us of shelving sandy beaches and of mud-flats. The eye of the

Trilobite tells us that the sun shone on the old beach where he

lived; for there is nothing in Nature without a purpose, and when so

complicated an organ was made to receive the light, there must have been

light to enter it. The immense vegetable deposits in the Carboniferous

period announce the introduction of an extensive terrestrial vegetation;

and the impressions left by the wood and leaves of the trees show

that these first forests must have grown in a damp soil and a moist

atmosphere. In short, all the remains of animals and plants hidden in

the rocks have something to tell of the climatic conditions and the

general circumstances under which they lived, and the study of fossils

is to the naturalist a thermometer by which he reads the variations of

temperature in past times, a plummet by which he sounds the depths of

the ancient oceans,--a register, in fact, of all the important physical

changes the earth has undergone.

But although the animals of the early geological deposits indicate

shallow seas by their similarity to our shoal-water animals, it must not

be supposed that they are by any means the same. On the contrary, the

old shells, crustacea, corals, etc., represent types which have existed

in all times with the same essential structural elements, but under

different specific forms in the several geological periods. And here

it may not be amiss to say something of what are called by naturalists

_representative types_.

The statement that different sets of animals and plants have

characterized the successive epochs is often understood as indicating

a difference of another kind than that which distinguishes animals now

living in different parts of the world. This is a mistake. There are

so-called representative types all over the globe, united to each other

by structural relations and separated by specific differences of

the same kind as those that unite and separate animals of different

geological periods. Take, for instance, mud-flats or sandy shores in the

same latitudes of Europe and America; we find living on each animals of

the same structural character and of the same general appearance,

but with certain specific differences, as of color, size, external

appendages, etc. They represent each other on the two continents.

The American wolves, foxes, bears, rabbits, are not the same as the

European, but those of one continent are as true to their respective

types as those of the other; under a somewhat different aspect they

represent the same groups of animals. In certain latitudes, or under

conditions of nearer proximity, these differences may be less marked.

It is well known that there is a great monotony of type, not only among

animals and plants, but in the human races also, throughout the Arctic

regions; and the animals characteristic of the high North reappear under

such identical forms in the neighborhood of the snow-fields in lofty

mountains, that to trace the difference between the ptarmigans, rabbits,

and other gnawing animals of the Alps, for instance, and those of the

Arctics, is among the most difficult problems of modern science.

And so is it also with the animated world of past ages; in similar

deposits of sand, mud, or lime, in adjoining regions of the same

geological age, identical remains of animals and plants may be

found, while at greater distances, but under similar circumstances,

representative species may occur. In very remote regions, however,

whether the circumstances be similar or dissimilar, the general aspect

of the organic world differs greatly, remoteness in space being thus in

some measure an indication of the degree of affinity between different

faunae. In deposits of different geological periods immediately

following each other we sometimes find remains of animals and plants so

closely allied to those of earlier or later periods that at first sight

the specific differences are hardly discernible. The difficulty of

solving these questions, and of appreciating correctly the differences

and similarities between such closely allied organisms, explains the

antagonistic views of many naturalists respecting the range of existence

of animals, during longer or shorter geological periods; and the

superficial way in which discussions concerning the transition of

species are carried on is mainly owing to an ignorance of the conditions

above alluded to. My own personal observation and experience in these

matters have led me to the conviction that every geological period

has had its own representatives, and that no single species has been

repeated in successive ages.

The laws regulating the geographical distribution of animals and their

combination into distinct or zoological provinces called faunae with

definite limits are very imperfectly understood as yet; but so closely

are all things linked together from the beginning till to-day that I am

convinced we shall never find the clue to their meaning till we carry on

our investigations in the past and the present simultaneously. The same

principle according to which animal and vegetable life is distributed

over the surface of the earth now prevailed in the earliest geological

periods. The geological deposits of all times have had their

characteristic faunae under various zones, their zoological provinces

presenting special combinations of animal and vegetable life over

certain regions, and their representative types reproducing in different

countries, but under similar latitudes, the same groups with specific

differences.

Of course, the nearer we approach the beginning of organic life, the

less marked do we find the differences to be, and for a very obvious

reason. The inequalities of the earth's surface, her mountain-barriers

protecting whole continents from the Arctic winds, her open plains

exposing others to the full force of the polar blasts, her snug valleys

and her lofty heights, her table-lands and rolling prairies, her

river-systems and her dry deserts, her cold ocean-currents pouring down

from the high North on some of her shores, while warm ones from tropical

seas carry their softer influence to others,--in short, all the

contrasts in the external configuration of the globe, with the physical

conditions attendant upon them, are naturally accompanied by a

corresponding variety in animal and vegetable life.

But in the Silurian age, when there were no elevations higher than

the Canadian hills, when water covered the face of the earth with the

exception of a few isolated portions lifted above the almost universal

ocean, how monotonous must have been the conditions of life! And what

should we expect to find on those first shores? If we are walking on a

sea-beach to-day, we do not look for animals that haunt the forests or

roam over the open plains, or for those that live in sheltered valleys

or in inland regions or on mountain-heights. We look for Shells, for

Mussels and Barnacles, for Crabs, for Shrimps, for Marine Worms, for

Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins, and we may find here and there a fish

stranded on the sand or tangled in the sea-weed. Let us remember, then,

that, in the Silurian period, the world, so far as it was raised above

the ocean, was a beach, and let us seek there for such creatures as God

has made to live on sea-shores, and not belittle the Creative work,

or say that He first scattered the seeds of life in meagre or stinted

measure, because we do not find air-breathing animals when there was

no fitting atmosphere to feed their lungs, insects with no terrestrial

plants to live upon, reptiles without marshes, birds without trees,

cattle without grass, all things, in short, without the essential

conditions for their existence.

What we do find--and these, as I shall endeavor to show my readers, in

such profusion that it would seem as if God, in the joy of creation, had

compensated Himself for a less variety of forms in the greater richness

of the early types--is an immense number of beings belonging to the four

primary divisions of the Animal Kingdom, but only to those classes whose

representatives are marine, whose home then, as now, was either in the

sea or along its shores. In other words, the first organic creation

expressed in its totality the structural conception since carried out in

such wonderful variety of details, and purposely limited then, because

the world, which was to be the home of the higher animals, was not yet

made ready to receive them.

I am fully aware that the intimate relations between the organic and

physical world are interpreted by many as indicating the absence, rather

than the presence, of an intelligent Creator. They argue, that the

dependence of animals on material laws gives us the clue to their origin

as well as to their maintenance. Were this influence as absolute and

unvarying as the purely mechanical action of physical circumstances

must necessarily be, this inference might have some pretence to

logical probability,--though it seems to me unnecessary, under any

circumstances, to resort to climatic influences or the action of any

physical laws to explain the thoughtful distribution of the organic and

inorganic world, so evidently intended to secure for all beings what

best suits their nature and their needs. But the truth is, that, while

these harmonious relations underlie the whole creation in such a manner

as to indicate a great central plan, of which all things are a part,

there is at the same time a freedom, an arbitrary element in the mode of

carrying it out, which seems to point to the exercise of an individual

will; for, side by side with facts, apparently the direct result of

physical laws, are other facts, the nature of which shows a complete

independence of external influences.

Take, for instance, the similarity above alluded to between the fauna of

the Arctics and that of the Alps, certainly showing a direct relation

between climatic conditions and animal and vegetable life. Yet even

there, where the shades of specific difference between many animals

and plants of the same class are so slight as to battle the keenest

investigators, we have representative types both in the Animal and

Vegetable Kingdoms as distinct and peculiar as those of widely removed

and strongly contrasted climatic conditions. Shall we attribute the

similarities and the differences alike to physical causes? Compare, for

example, the Reindeer of the Arctics with the Ibex and the Chamois,

representing the same group in the Alps. Even on mountain-heights of

similar altitudes, where not only climate, but other physical conditions

would suggest a recurrence of identical animals, we do not find the

same, but representative types. The Ibex of the Alps differs, for

instance, from that of the Pyrenees, that of the Pyrenees from those of

the Caucasus and Himalayas, these again from each other and from that of

the Altai.

But perhaps the most conclusive proof that we must seek for the origin

of organic life outside of physical causes consists in the permanence of

the fundamental types, while the species representing these types have

differed in every geological period. Now what we call typical features

of structure are in themselves no more stable or permanent than specific

features. If physical causes, such as light, heat, moisture, food,

habits of life, etc., acting upon individuals, have gradually in

successive generations changed the character of the species to which

they belong, why not that of the class and the branch also? If we judge

this question from the material side at all, we must, in order to judge

it fairly, look at it wholly from that point of view. If these specific

changes are brought about in this way, it is because external causes

have positive permanent effects upon the substances of which animals are

built: they have power to change their hair, to change their skin, to

change certain external appendages or ornamentations, and any other of

those ultimate features which naturalists call specific characters.

Now I would ask what there is in the substances out of which class

characters are built that would make them less susceptible to such

external influences than these specific characters. In many instances

the former are more delicate, more sensitive, far more fragile and

transient in their material nature than the latter. And yet never, in

all the chances and changes of time, have we seen any alteration in the

mode of respiration, of reproduction, of circulation, or in any of the

systems of organs which characterize the more comprehensive groups of

the Animal Kingdom, although they are quite as much under the immediate

influence of physical causes as those structural features which have

been constantly changing.

The woody fibre of the Pine-trees has had the same structure from the

Carboniferous age to this day, while their mode of branching and the

forms of their cones and leaves have been different in each period

according to their respective species. The combination of rings, the

structure of the wings, and the articulations of the legs are the same

in the Cockroaches of the Carboniferous age as in those which infest our

ships and our dwellings to-day, while the proportion of their parts is

on quite another scale. The tissue of the Corals in the Silurian age is

identical in chemical combination and organic structure with that of the

Corals of our modern reefs, and yet the extensive researches upon this

class for which we are indebted to Milne Edwards and Haime have not

revealed a single species extending through successive geological ages,

but show us, on the contrary, that every age has had its own kinds,

differing among themselves in the same way as those of the Gulf of

Mexico differ now from those of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. The

scales of the oldest known fishes in the Silurian beds have the same

microscopic structure as those of their representative types today, and

yet I have never seen a single fossil fish presenting the same specific

characters in the successive geological epochs. The teeth of the oldest

Sharks show the same microscopic structure as those of the present time,

and we do not lack opportunities for comparison, since the former are as

common in the mountain-limestone of Ireland as are those of the living

Sharks on any beach where our fishermen boil them for the sake of their

oil, and yet the Sharks appear under different generic and specific

forms in each geological age.

But without multiplying examples, which might be adduced _ad infinitum_,

to show permanence of type combined with repeated changes of species,

suffice it to say, that, while the general features in the framework of

the organic world and the materials of which that framework is

built, though quite as subject to the influence of physical external

circumstances as any so-called specific-features, have remained

perfectly intact from the beginning of Creation till now, so that not

the smallest difference is to be discerned in these respects between the

oldest representatives of the oldest types in the oldest Silurian rocks

and their successors through all the geological ages up to the present

day, the species have been different in each epoch. It is surely a fair

question to ask the advocates of the transmutation theory, whether they

attribute to physical laws the discernment that would lead them to

change the specific features, but to respect all those characters by

which the higher structural combinations of the Animal Kingdom are

preserved without alteration,--in other words, to maintain the organic

plan, while constantly diversifying the mode of expressing it. If so, it

would perhaps be as well to call them by another name, since they show

all the comprehensive wisdom of an intelligent Creator. Until they can

tell us why certain features of animals and plants are permanent under

conditions which, according to their view, have power to change certain

other features no more perishable or transient in themselves, the

supporters of the development theory will have failed to substantiate

their peculiar scientific doctrine.

But this discussion has led us far away from our starting point, and

interrupted our walk along the Silurian beach; let us return to gather a

few specimens there, and compare them with the more familiar ones of our

own shores. I have said that the beach was a shelving one, and covered

of course with shoal waters; but as I have no desire to mislead my

readers, or to present truths as generally accepted which are still

subject to dispute, I would state here that the parallel ridges across

the State of New York, considered by some geologists as the successive

shores of a receding ocean, are believed by others to be the

inequalities on the bottom of a shallow sea. Not only, however, does the

general character of these successive terraces suggest the idea that

they must have been shores, but the ripple-marks upon them are as

distinct as upon any modern beach. The regular rise and fall of the

water is registered there in waving, undulating lines as clearly as on

the sand-beaches of Newport or Nahant; and we can see on any one of

those ancient shores the track left by the waves as they rippled back at

ebb of the tide thousands of centuries ago. One can often see where some

obstacle interrupted the course of the water, causing it to break around

it; and such an indentation even retains the soft, muddy, plastic look

that we observe on the present beaches, where the resistance made by any

pebble or shell to the retreating wave has given it greater force at

that point, so that the sand around the spot is soaked and loosened.

There is still another sign, equally familiar to those who have watched

the action of water on a beach. Where a shore is very shelving and flat,

so that the waves do not recede in ripples from it, but in one unbroken

sheet, the sand and small pebbles are dragged and form lines which

diverge whenever the water meets an obstacle, thus forming sharp angles

on the sand. Such marks are as distinct on the oldest Silurian rocks as

if they had been made yesterday. Nor are these the only indications of

the same fact. There are certain animals living always upon sandy or

muddy shores, which require for their well-being that the beach should

be left dry a part of the day. These animals, moving about in the sand

or mud from which the water has retreated, leave their tracks there; and

if, at such a time, the wind is blowing dust over the beach, and the sun

is hot enough to bake it upon the impressions so formed, they are left

in a kind of mould. Such trails and furrows, made by small Shells or

Crustacea, are also found in plenty on the oldest deposits.

Admitting it, then, to be a beach, let us begin with the lowest type of

the Animal Kingdom, and see what Radiates are to be found there. There

are plenty of Corals, but they are not the same kinds of Corals as those

that build up our reefs and islands now. The modern Coral animals are

chiefly Polyps, but the prevailing Corals of the Silurian age were

Acalephian Hydroids, animals which indeed resemble Polyps in certain

external features, and have been mistaken for them, but which are

nevertheless Acalephs by their internal structure; for, instead of

having the vertical partitions dividing the body into chambers, so

characteristic of the Polyps, they are divided by tubes corresponding to

the radiating tubes of the Acalephs proper, these tubes being themselves

divided at regular distances by horizontal floors, so that they never

run uninterruptedly from top to bottom of the body. I subjoin a woodcut

of a Silurian Coral, which does not, however, show the peculiar internal

structure, but gives some idea of the general appearance of the old

Hydroid Corals. We have but one Acalephian Coral now living, the

Millepore; and it was by comparing that with these ancient ones that I

first detected their relation to the Acalephs. For the true Acalephs or

Jelly-Fishes we shall look in vain; but the presence of the Acalephian

Corals establishes the existence of the type, and we cannot expect to

find those kinds preserved which are wholly destitute of hard parts. I

do not attempt any description of the Polyps proper, because the early

Corals of that class are comparatively few, and do not present features

sufficiently characteristic to attract the notice of the casual

observer.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Of the Echinoderms, the class of Radiates represented now by our

Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins, we may gather any quantity, though the old

fashioned forms are very different from the living ones. I have dwelt at

such length in a former article[A] on the wonderful beauty and variety

of the Crinoids, or "Stone Lilies," as they have been called, from their

resemblance to flowers, that I will only briefly allude to them here.

The subjoined wood-cut represents one with a closed cup; but the number

of their different patterns is hardly to be counted, and I would invite

any one who questions the abundant expression of life in those days to

look at some slabs of ancient limestone in the Zoölogical Museum at

Cambridge, where the stems of the Crinoids are tangled together as

thickly as sea-weed on the shore. Indeed, some of our rock-deposits

consist chiefly of the fragments of their remains.

[Footnote A: See _Methods of Study in Natural History, Atlantic

Monthly_, No. LVII., July, 1862.]

[Illustration]

The Mollusks were also represented then, as now, by their three

classes,--Acephala, Gasteropoda, and Cephalopoda. The Acephala or

Bivalves we shall find in great numbers, but of a very different pattern

from the Oysters, Clams, and Mussels of recent times. The annexed

wood-cut represents one of these Brachiopods, which form a very

characteristic type of the Silurian deposits. The square cut of the

upper edge, where the two valves meet along the back and are united by

a hinge, is altogether old-fashioned, and unknown among our modern

Bivalves. The wood-cut does not show the inequality of the two valves,

also a very characteristic feature of this group,--one valve being flat

and fitting closely into the other, which is more spreading and much

fuller. These, also, were represented by a great variety of species, and

we find them crowded together as closely in the ancient rocks as Oysters

or Clams or Mussels on any of our modern shores. Besides these, there

were the Bryozoa, a small kind of Mollusk allied to the Clams, and very

busy then in the ancient Coral work. They grew in communities, and the

separate individuals are so minute that a Bryozoan stock looks like

some delicate moss. They still have their place among the Reef-Building

Corals, but play an insignificant part in comparison with that of their

predecessors.

Of the Silurian Univalves or Gasteropods there is not much to tell, for

their spiral shells were so brittle that scarcely any perfect specimens

are known, though their broken remains are found in such quantities as

to show that this class also was very fully represented in the earliest

creation. But the highest class of Mollusks, the Cephalopods or

Chambered Shells, or Cuttle-Fishes, as they are called when the animal

is unprotected by a shell, are, on the contrary, very well preserved,

and they are very numerous. Of these I will speak somewhat more in

detail, because their geological history is a very curious one.

[Illustration]

The Chambered Nautilus is familiar to all, since, from the exquisite

beauty of its shell, it is especially sought for by conchologists;

but it is nevertheless not so common in our days as the Squids and

Cuttle-Fishes, which are the most numerous modern representatives of the

class. In the earliest geological days, on the contrary, those with a

shell predominated, differing from the later ones, however, in having

the shell perfectly straight instead of curved, though its internal

structure was the same as it is now and has ever been. Then, as now, the

animal shut himself out from his last year's home, building his annual

wall behind him, till his whole shell was divided into successive

chambers, all of which were connected by a siphon. Some of the shells of

this kind belonging to the Silurian deposits are enormous: giants of the

sea they must have been in those days. They have been found fifteen

feet long, and as large round as a man's body. One can imagine that the

Cuttle-Fish inhabiting such a shell must have been a formidable animal.

These straight-chambered shells of the Silurian and Devonian seas are

called Orthoceratites (see wood-cut below). We shall meet them again

hereafter, under another name and with a different form; for, as they

advance in the geological ages, they not only assume the curved outline

with ever closer whorls till it culminates in the compact coil of the

Ammonites of the middle periods, but the partitions, which are perfectly

plain walls in these earlier forms, become scalloped and involuted along

the edges in the later ones, making the most delicate and exquisite

tracery on the surface of the shell.

Of Articulates we find only two classes, Worms and Crustacea. Insects

there were none,--for, as we have seen, this early world was wholly

marine. There is little to be said of the Worms, for their soft bodies,

unprotected by any hard covering, could hardly be preserved; but,

like the marine Worms of our own times, they were in the habit of

constructing envelopes for themselves, built of sand, or sometimes from

a secretion of their own bodies, and these cases we find in the earliest

deposits, giving us assurance that the Worms were represented there.

I should add, however, that many impressions described as produced by

Worms are more likely to have been the tracks of Crustacea.

But by far the most characteristic class of Articulates in ancient times

were the Crustaceans. The Trilobites stand in the same relation to the

modern Crustacea as the Crinoids do to the modern Echinoderms. They were

then the sole representatives of the class, and the variety and richness

of the type are most extraordinary. They were of nearly equal breadth

for the whole length of the body, and rounded at the two ends, so as

to form an oval outline. To give any adequate idea of the number and

variety of species would fill a volume, but I may enumerate some of

the more striking differences: as, for instance, the greater or less

prominence of the anterior shield,--the preponderance of the posterior

end in some, while in others the two ends are nearly equal,--the

presence or absence of prongs on the shield and of spines along the

sides of the body,--appendages on the head in some species, of which

others are entirely destitute,--and the smooth outline of some, while

in others the surface is broken by a variety of external ornamentation.

Such are a few of the more prominent differences among them. But the

general structural features are the same in all. The middle region of

the body is always divided in uniform rings, lobed in the middle so as

to make a ridge along the back with a slight depression on either side

of it. It is from this three-lobed division that they receive their

name. The subjoined wood-cut represents a characteristic Silurian

Trilobite.

[Illustration]

There is no group more prominent in the earliest creations than this one

of the Trilobites, and so exclusively do they belong to them, that, as

we shall see, in proportion as the later representatives of the class

come in, these old-world Crustaceans drop out of the ranks, fall behind,

as it were, in the long procession of animals, and are left in the

ancient deposits. Even in the Carboniferous period but few are to

be found: they had their day in the Silurian and Devonian ages. In

consequence of their solid exterior, the preservation of these animals

is very complete; and their attitudes are often so natural, and the

condition of all their parts so perfect, that one would say they had

died yesterday rather than countless centuries ago.

Their geological history has been very thoroughly studied; not only are

we familiar with all their adult characters, but even their embryology

is well known to naturalists. It is, indeed, wonderful that the mode of

growth of animals which died out in the Carboniferous period should

be better known to us than that of many living types. But it is

nevertheless true that their embryonic forms have been found perfectly

preserved in the rocks, and Barrande, in his "Système Silurien de la

Bohème," gives us all the stages of their development, from the time

when the animal is merely sketched out as a simple furrow in the embryo

to its mature condition. So complete is the sequence, that the plate on

which their embryonic changes are illustrated contains more than thirty

figures, all representing different phases of their growth. There is not

a living Crab represented so fully in any of our scientific works as is

that one species of Trilobite whose whole story Barrande has traced from

the egg to its adult size. Such facts should make those who rest

their fanciful theories of the origin and development of life on the

imperfection of the geological record, filling up the supposed lapses to

suit themselves, more cautious as to their results.

We have found, then, Radiates, Mollusks, and Articulates in plenty;

and now what is to be said of Vertebrates in these old times,--of the

highest and most important division of the Animal Kingdom, that to which

we ourselves belong? They were represented by Fishes alone; and the Fish

chapter in the history of the early organic world is a curious, and,

as it seems to me, a very significant one. We shall find no perfect

specimens; and he would be a daring, not to say a presumptuous thinker,

who would venture to reconstruct a fish of the Silurian age from any

remains that are left to us. But still we find enough to indicate

clearly the style of those old fishes, and to show, by comparison with

the living types, to what group of modern times they belong. We should

naturally expect to find the Vertebrates introduced in their simplest

form; but this is by no means the case: the common fishes, as Cod,

Herring, Mackerel, and the like, were unknown in those days.

But there are two groups of so-called fishes, differing from these by

some marked features, among which we may find the modern representatives

of these earliest Vertebrates. Of these two groups one consists chiefly

now of the Gar-Pikes of our Western waters, though the Sturgeons share

also in some of their features. In these fishes there is a singular

union of reptilian with fish-like characters. The systems of circulation

and of respiration in them are more complicated than in the common

fishes; the structure of the skull resembles that of the skull in

reptiles, and they have other reptilian characters, such as their

ability to move the head upon the neck independently of the body, and

the connection of the vertebrae by ball-and-socket joint, instead of

by inverted cones, as in the ordinary fishes. Their scales are also

peculiar, being covered by enamel so hard, that, if struck with steel,

they will emit sparks like flint. It is on account of this peculiarity

that the whole group has been called Ganoid. Now, though we have

not found as yet any complete specimens of Silurian fishes, their

disconnected remains are scattered profusely in the early deposits. The

scales, parts of the backbone, parts of the skull, the teeth, are found

in a tolerable state of preservation; and these indications, fragmentary

as they are, give us the clue to the character of the most ancient

fishes. A large proportion of them were no doubt Ganoids; for they had

the same peculiar articulation of the vertebrae, the flexibility of the

neck, and the hard scales so characteristic of our Gar-Pikes.

There is another type of these ancient Vertebrates, which has also

its representatives among our modern fishes. These are the Sharks and

Skates, or, as the Greeks used to call them, the Selachians,--making a

very appropriate distinction between them and common fishes, on account

of the difference in the structure of the skeleton. In Selachians the

quality of the bones is granular, instead of fibrous, as in fishes; the

arches above and below the backbone are formed by flat plates, instead

of the spines so characteristic of all the fish proper; and the skull

consists of a solid box, instead of being built of overlapping pieces

like the true fish-skull. They differ also in their teeth, which,

instead of being implanted in the bone by a root, as in fishes, are

loosely set in the gum without any connection with the bone, and are

movable, being arranged in several rows one behind another, the back

rows moving forward to take the place of the front ones when the latter

are worn off. They are unlike the common fishes also in having the

backbone continued to the very end of the tail, which is cut in uneven

lobes, the upper lobe being the longer of the two, while the terminal

fin, so constant a feature in fishes, is wanting. The Selachians

resemble higher Vertebrate types not only in the small number of their

eggs, and in the closer connection of the young with the mother, but

also in their embryological development, which has many features in

common with that of birds and turtles. Of this group, also, we find

numerous remains in the ancient geological deposits; and though we have

not the means of distinguishing the species, we have ample evidence for

determining the type.

This combination of higher with lower features in the earlier organic

forms is very striking, and becomes still more significant when we find

that many of the later types recall the more ancient ones. I have called

these more comprehensive groups of former times, combining characters of

different classes, synthetic or prophetic types; and we might as fitly

give the name of retrospective types to many of the later groups, for

they recall the past, as the former anticipate the future. And it is not

only among the Fishes and the Reptiles that we find these combinations.

The most numerous of the ancient Radiates are the Acalephlan Corals,

combining, in the Hydroid form, the Polyp-like mode of life, habits, and

general appearance with the structure of Acalephs. The Crinoids, with

the closed cups in some, and the open, star-like crowns in others, unite

features of the present Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins, and, by their stem

attaching them to the ground, include also a Polyp-like character; while

the Trilobites, with their uniform rings and their prominent anterior

shield, unite characters of Worms and Crustacea.

These early types seem to sketch in broad, general characters the

Creative purpose, and to include in the first average expression of the

plan all its structural possibilities. The Crinoid forms include the

thought of the modern Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins; the simple chambered

shells of the Silurian anticipate the more complicated structure of the

later ones; the Trilobites give the most comprehensive expression of the

Articulate type; while the early Fishes not only prophesy the Reptiles

which are to come, but also hint at Birds and even at Mammalia by their

embryonic development and their mode of reproduction.

Looked at from this point of view, the animal world is an intellectual

Creation, complete in all its parts, and coherent throughout; and when

we find, that, although these ancient types have become obsolete and

been replaced by modern ones, yet there are always a few old-fashioned

individuals, left behind, as it were, to give the key to the history

of their race, as the Gar-Pike, for instance, to explain the ancient

Fishes, the Millepore to explain the old Acalephian Corals, the Nautilus

to be the modern exponent of the Ammonites and Orthoceratites of past

times, we cannot avoid the impression that this Creative work has been

intended also to be educational for Man, and to teach him his own

relation to the organic world. The embryology of the modern types

confirms this idea, for here we find an epitome of their geological

history. The embryo of the present Star-Fishes recalls the Crinoids;

the embryo of the Crab recalls the Trilobites; the embryo of the

Vertebrates, including even that of the higher Mammalia, recalls the

ancient Fishes. Does not this fact, that the individual animal in its

growth recalls the history of its type, prove that the Creative Thought

in its immediate present action embraces all that has gone before, as

its first organic expression included all that was to come? The study of

Nature in its highest meaning shows us the present doubly rich with all

the past, and the past linked and interwoven with the present, not lying

divorced and dead behind it.

I have spoken of the Silurian beach as if there were but one, not only

because I wished to limit my sketch, and to attempt at least to give

it the vividness of a special locality, but also because a single such

shore will give us as good an idea of the characteristic fauna of the

time as if we drew our material from a wider range. There are, however,

a great number of parallel ridges belonging to the Silurian and Devonian

periods, running from east to west, not only through the State of New

York, but far beyond, through the States of Michigan and Wisconsin into

Minnesota; one may follow nine or ten such successive shores in unbroken

lines, from the neighborhood of Lake Champlain to the Far West. They

have all the irregularities of modern sea-shores, running up to form

little bays here, and jutting out in promontories there; and upon each

one are found animals of the same kind, but differing in species from

those of the preceding.

Although the early geological periods are more legible in North America,

because they are exposed over such extensive tracts of land, yet they

have been studied in many other parts of the globe. In Norway, in

Germany, in France, in Russia, in Siberia, in Kamtchatka, in parts of

South America, in short, wherever the civilization of the white race has

extended, Silurian deposits have been observed, and everywhere they

bear the same testimony to a profuse and varied creation. The earth was

teeming then with life as now, and in whatever corner of its surface the

geologist finds the old strata, they hold a dead fauna as numerous as

that which lives and moves above it. Nor do we find that there was any

gradual increase or decrease of any organic forms at the beginning and

close of the successive periods. On the contrary, the opening scenes of

every chapter in the world's history have been crowded with life, and

its last leaves as full and varied as its first.

I think the impression that the faunae of the early geological periods

were more scanty than those of later times arises partly from the fact

that the present creation is made a standard of comparison for all

preceding creations. Of course, the collections of living types in any

museum must be more numerous than those of fossil forms, for the simple

reason that almost the whole of the present surface of the earth, with

the animals and plants inhabiting it, is known to us, whereas the

deposits of the Silurian and Devonian periods are exposed to view only

over comparatively limited tracts and in disconnected regions. But let

us compare a given extent of Silurian or Devonian sea-shore with an

equal extent of sea-shore belonging to our own time, and we shall

soon be convinced that the one is as populous as the other. On the

New-England coast there are about one hundred and fifty different kinds

of fishes, in the Gulf of Mexico two hundred and fifty, in the Red Sea

about the same. We may allow in present times an average of two hundred

or two hundred and fifty different kinds of fishes to an extent of ocean

covering about four hundred miles. Now I have made a special study of

the Devonian rocks of Northern Europe, in the Baltic and along the shore

of the German Ocean. I have found in those deposits alone one hundred

and ten kinds of fossil fishes. To judge of the total number of species

belonging to those early ages by the number known to exist now is about

as reasonable as to infer that because Aristotle, familiar only with the

waters of Greece, recorded less than three hundred kinds of fishes in

his limited fishing-ground, therefore these were all the fishes then

living. The fishing-ground of the geologist in the Silurian and Devonian

periods is even more circumscribed than his, and belongs, besides, not

to a living, but to a dead world, far more difficult to decipher.

But the sciences of Geology and Palaeontology are making such rapid

progress, now that they go hand in hand, that our familiarity with past

creations is daily increasing. We know already that extinct animals

exist all over the world: heaped together under the snows of

Siberia,--lying thick beneath the Indian soil,--found wherever English

settlers till the ground or work the mines of Australia,--figured in the

old Encyclopaedias of China, where the Chinese philosophers have drawn

them with the accuracy of their nation,--built into the most beautiful

temples of classic lands, for even the stones of the Parthenon are full

of the fragments of these old fossils, and if any chance had directed

the attention of Aristotle towards them, the science of Palaeontology

would not have waited for its founder till Cuvier was born,--in short,

in every corner of the earth where the investigations of civilized men

have penetrated, from the Arctic to Patagonia and the Cape of Good Hope,

these relics tell us of successive populations lying far behind our own,

and belonging to distinct periods of the world's history.

* * * * *

In my next article I shall give some account of the marshes and forests

of the Carboniferous age, with their characteristic vegetation and

inhabitants.

CORALIE.

Pale water-flowers,

That quiver in the quick turn of the brook,

And thou, dim nook,--

Dimmer in twilight,--call again to me

Visions of life and glory that were ours,

When first she led me here, young Coralie!

No longer blest,

Yet standing here in silence, may not we

Fancy or feign

That little flowers do fall about thy rest

In silver mist and tender-dropping rain,

And that thy world is peace, loved Coralie?

Our friendships flee,

And, darkening all things with her mighty shade,

Comes Misery.

No longer look the faces that we see,

With the old eyes; and Woe itself shall fade,

Nor even this be left us, Coralie!

Feelings and fears

That once were ours have perished in the mould,

And grief is cold:

Hearts may be dead to grief; and if our tears

Are failing or forgetful, there will be

Mourners about thy bed, lost Coralie!

The brook-flowers shine,

And a faint song the falling water has,--

But not for thee!

The dull night weepeth, and the sorrowing pine

Drops his dead hair upon thy young grave-grass,

My Coralie! my Coralie!

* * * * *

I took from its glass a flower,

To lay on her grave with dull accusing tears;

But the heart of the flower fell out as I handled the rose,

And my heart is shattered, and soon will wither away.

I watch the changing shadows,

And the patch of windy sunshine upon the hill,

And the long blue woods; and a grief no tongue can tell

Breaks at my eyes in drops of bitter rain.

I hear her baby-wagon,

And the little wheels go over my heart;

Oh, when will the light of the darkened house return?

Oh, when will she come who made the hills so fair?

I sit by the parlor-window,

When twilight deepens, and winds get cold without;

But the blessed feet no more come up the walk,

And my little girl and I cry softly together.

* * * * *

SOJOURNER TRUTH, THE LIBYAN SIBYL.

Many years ago, the few readers of radical Abolitionist papers must

often have seen the singular name of Sojourner Truth, announced as a

frequent speaker at Anti-Slavery meetings, and as travelling on a

sort of self-appointed agency through the country. I had myself often

remarked the name, but never met the individual. On one occasion, when

our house was filled with company, several eminent clergymen being our

guests, notice was brought up to me that Sojourner Truth was below, and

requested an interview. Knowing nothing of her but her singular name, I

went down, prepared to make the interview short, as the pressure of many

other engagements demanded.

When I went into the room, a tall, spare form arose to meet me. She was

evidently a full-blooded African, and though now aged and worn with many

hardships, still gave the impression of a physical development which

in early youth must have been as fine a specimen of the torrid zone as

Cumberworth's celebrated statuette of the Negro Woman at the Fountain.

Indeed, she so strongly reminded me of that figure, that, when I recall

the events of her life, as she narrated them to me, I imagine her as a

living, breathing impersonation of that work of art.

I do not recollect ever to have been conversant with any one who had

more of that silent and subtle power which we call personal presence

than this woman. In the modern Spiritualistic phraseology, she would

be described as having a strong sphere. Her tall form, as she rose up

before me, is still vivid to my mind. She was dressed in some stout,

grayish stuff, neat and clean, though dusty from travel. On her head

she wore a bright Madras handkerchief, arranged as a turban, after the

manner of her race. She seemed perfectly self-possessed and at her

ease,--in fact, there was almost an unconscious superiority, not unmixed

with a solemn twinkle of humor, in the odd, composed manner in which she

looked down on me. Her whole air had at times a gloomy sort of drollery

which impressed one strangely.

"So, this is _you_," she said.

"Yes," I answered.

"Well, honey, de Lord bless ye! I jes' thought I'd like to come an' have

a look at ye. You's heerd o' me, I reckon?" she added.

"Yes, I think I have. You go about lecturing, do you not?"

"Yes, honey, that's what I do. The Lord has made me a sign unto this

nation, an' I go round a-testifyin', an' showin' on 'em their sins agin

my people."

So saying, she took a seat, and, stooping over and crossing her arms on

her knees, she looked down on the floor, and appeared to fall into a

sort of reverie.

Her great gloomy eyes and her dark face seemed to work with some

undercurrent of feeling; she sighed deeply, and occasionally broke

out,--

"O Lord! O Lord! Oh, the tears, an' the groans, an' the moans! O Lord!"

I should have said that she was accompanied by a little grandson of ten

years,--the fattest, jolliest woolly-headed little specimen of Africa

that one can imagine. He was grinning and showing his glistening white

teeth in a state of perpetual merriment, and at this moment broke out

into an audible giggle, which disturbed the reverie into which his

relative was falling.

She looked at him with an indulgent sadness, and then at me.

"Laws, Ma'am, _he_ don't know nothin' about it,--_he_ don't. Why, I've

seen them poor critters, beat an' 'bused an' hunted, brought in all

torn,--ears hangin' all in rags, where the dogs been a-bitin' of 'em!"

This set off our little African Puck into another giggle, in which he

seemed perfectly convulsed.

She surveyed him soberly, without the slightest irritation.

"Well, you may bless the Lord you _can_ laugh; but I tell you, 't wa'n't

no laughin' matter."

By this time I thought her manner so original that it might be worth

while to call down my friends; and she seemed perfectly well pleased

with the idea. An audience was what she wanted,--it mattered not whether

high or low, learned or ignorant. She had things to say, and was ready

to say them at all times, and to any one.

I called down Dr. Beecher, Professor Allen, and two or three other

clergymen, who, together with my husband and family, made a roomful. No

princess could have received a drawing-room with more composed dignity

than Sojourner her audience. She stood among them, calm and erect, as

one of her own native palm-trees waving alone in the desert. I presented

one after another to her, and at last said,--

"Sojourner, this is Dr. Beecher. He is a very celebrated preacher."

"_Is_ he?" she said, offering her hand in a condescending manner, and

looking down on his white head. "Ye dear lamb, I'm glad to see ye! De

Lord bless ye! I loves preachers. I'm a kind o' preacher myself."

"You are?" said Dr. Beecher. "Do you preach from the Bible?"

"No, honey, can't preach from de Bible,--can't read a letter."

"Why, Sojourner, what do you preach from, then?"

Her answer was given with a solemn power of voice, peculiar to herself,

that hushed every one in the room.

"When I preaches, I has jest one text to preach from, an' I always

preaches from this one. _My_ text is, 'WHEN I FOUND JESUS.'"

"Well, you couldn't have a better one," said one of the ministers.

She paid no attention to him, but stood and seemed swelling with her own

thoughts, and then began this narration:--

"Well, now, I'll jest have to go back, an' tell ye all about it. Ye see,

we was all brought over from Africa, father an' mother an' I, an' a lot

more of us; an' we was sold up an' down, an' hither an' yon; an' I can

'member, when I was a little thing, not bigger than this 'ere," pointing

to her grandson, "how my ole mammy would sit out o' doors in the

evenin', an' look up at the stars an' groan. She'd groan an' groan, an'

says I to her,--

"'Mammy, what makes you groan so?'

"An' she'd say,--

"'Matter enough, chile! I'm groanin' to think o' my poor children: they

don't know where I be, an' I don't know where they be; they looks up at

the stars, an' I looks up at the stars, but I can't tell where they be.

"'Now,' she said, 'chile, when you're grown up, you may be sold away

from your mother an' all your ole friends, an' have great troubles come

on ye; an' when you has these troubles come on ye, ye jes' go to God,

an' He'll help ye.'

"An' says I to her,--

"'Who is God, anyhow, mammy?'

"An' says she,--

"'Why, chile, you jes' look up _dar_! It's Him that made all _dem_!'

"Well, I didn't mind much 'bout God in them days. I grew up pretty

lively an' strong, an' could row a boat, or ride a horse, or work round,

an' do 'most anything.

"At last I got sold away to a real hard massa an' missis. Oh, I tell

you, they _was_ hard! 'Peared like I couldn't please 'em, nohow. An'

then I thought o' what my old mammy told me about God; an' I thought I'd

got into trouble, sure enough, an' I wanted to find God, an' I heerd

some one tell a story about a man that met God on a threshin'-floor, an'

I thought, 'Well an' good, I'll have a threshin'-floor, too.' So I went

down in the lot, an' I threshed down a place real hard, an' I used to go

down there every day, an' pray an' cry with all my might, a-prayin' to

the Lord to make my massa an' missis better, but it didn't seem to do no

good; an' so says I, one day,--

"'O God, I been a-askin' ye, an' askin' ye, an' askin' ye, for all this

long time, to make my massa an' missis better, an' you don't do it, an'

what _can_ be the reason? Why, maybe you _can't._ Well, I shouldn't

wonder ef you couldn't. Well, now, I tell you, I'll make a bargain with

you. Ef you'll help me to git away from my massa an' missis, I'll agree

to be good; but ef you don't help me, I really don't think I can be.

Now,' says I, 'I want to git away; but the trouble's jest here: ef I try

to git away in the night, I can't see; an' ef I try to git away in the

daytime, they'll see me, an' be after me.'

"Then the Lord said to me, 'Git up two or three hours afore daylight,

an' start off.'

"An' says I, 'Thank 'ee, Lord! that's a good thought.'

"So up I got, about three o'clock in the mornin', an' I started an'

travelled pretty fast, till, when the sun rose, I was clear away from

our place an' our folks, an' out o' sight. An' then I begun to think I

didn't know nothin' where to go. So I kneeled down, and says I,--

"'Well, Lord, you've started me out, an' now please to show me where to

go.'

"Then the Lord made a house appear to me, an' He said to me that I was

to walk on till I saw that house, an' then go in an' ask the people to

take me. An' I travelled all day, an' didn't come to the house till late

at night; but when I saw it, sure enough, I went in, an' I told the

folks that the Lord sent me; an' they was Quakers, an' real kind they

was to me. They jes' took me in, an' did for me as kind as ef I'd been

one of 'em; an' after they'd giv me supper, they took me into a room

where there was a great, tall, white bed; an' they told me to sleep

there. Well, honey, I was kind o' skeered when they left me alone with

that great white bed; 'cause I never had been in a bed in my life. It

never came into my mind they could mean me to sleep in it. An' so I jes'

camped down under it, on the floor, an' then I slep' pretty well. In the

mornin', when they came in, they asked me of I hadn't been asleep; an' I

said, 'Yes, I never slep' better.' An' they said, 'Why, you haven't been

in the bed!' An' says I, 'Laws, you didn't think o' sech a thing as my

sleepin' in dat 'ar' _bed_, did you? I never heerd o' sech a thing in my

life.'

"Well, ye see, honey, I stayed an' lived with 'em. An' now jes' look

here: instead o' keepin' my promise an' bein' good, as I told the Lord I

would, jest as soon as everything got a-goin' easy, _I forgot all about

God_.

"Pretty well don't need no help; an' I gin up prayin.' I lived there two

or three years, an' then the slaves in New York were all set free, an'

ole massa came to our house to make a visit, an' he asked me ef I didn't

want to go back an' see the folks on the ole place. An' I told him I

did. So he said, ef I'd jes' git into the wagon with him, he'd carry me

over. Well, jest as I was goin' out to git into the wagon, _I met God_!

an' says I, 'O God, I didn't know as you was so great!' An' I turned

right round an' come into the house, an' set down in my room; for 't was

God all around me. I could feel it burnin', burnin', burnin' all around

me, an' goin' through me; an' I saw I was so wicked, it seemed as ef it

would burn me up. An' I said, 'O somebody, somebody, stand between God

an' me! for it burns me!' Then, honey, when I said so, I felt as it were

somethin' like an _amberill_ [umbrella] that came between me an' the

light, an' I felt it was _somebody_,--somebody that stood between me an'

God; an' it felt cool, like a shade; an' says I, 'Who's this that stands

between me an' God? Is it old Cato?' He was a pious old preacher; but

then I seemed to see Cato in the light, an' he was all polluted an'

vile, like me; an' I said, 'Is it old Sally?' an' then I saw her, an'

she seemed jes' so. An' then says I, '_Who_ is this?' An' then, honey,

for a while it was like the sun shinin' in a pail o' water, when it

moves up an' down; for I begun to feel 't was somebody that loved me;

an' I tried to know him. An' I said, 'I know you! I know you! I know

you!'--an' then I said, 'I don't know you! I don't know you! I don't

know you!' An' when I said, 'I know you, I know you,' the light came;

an' when I said, 'I don't know you, I don't know you,' it went, jes'

like the sun in a pail o' water. An' finally somethin' spoke out in me

an' said, '_This is Jesus _!' An' I spoke out with all my might, an'

says I, '_This is Jesus_! Glory be to God!' An' then the whole world

grew bright, an' the trees they waved an' waved in glory, an' every

little bit o' stone on the ground shone like glass; an' I shouted an'

said, 'Praise, praise, praise to the Lord!' An' I begun to feel sech

a love in my soul as I never felt before,--love to all creatures. An'

then, all of a sudden, it stopped, an' I said, 'Dar's de white folks,

that have abused you an' beat you an' abused your people,--think o'

them!' But then there came another rush of love through my soul, an' I

cried out loud,--'Lord, Lord, I can love _even de white folks_!'

"Honey, I jes' walked round an' round in a dream. Jesus loved me! I

knowed it,--I felt it. Jesus was my Jesus. Jesus would love me always. I

didn't dare tell nobody; 't was a great secret. Everything had been got

away from me that I ever had; an' I thought that ef I let white folks

know about this, maybe they'd get _Him_ away,--so I said, 'I'll keep

this close. I won't let any one know.'"

"But, Sojourner, had you never been told about Jesus Christ?"

"No, honey. I hadn't heerd no preachin',--been to no meetin'. Nobody

hadn't told me. I'd kind o' heerd of Jesus, but thought he was like

Gineral Lafayette, or some o' them. But one night there was a Methodist

meetin' somewhere in our parts, an' I went; an' they got up an' begun

for to tell der 'speriences; an' de fust one begun to speak. I started,

'cause he told about Jesus. 'Why,' says I to myself, 'dat man's found

him, too!' An' another got up an' spoke, an' I said, 'He's found him,

too!' An' finally I said, 'Why, they all know him!' I was so happy! An'

then they sung this hymn": (Here Sojourner sang, in a strange, cracked

voice, but evidently with all her soul and might, mispronouncing the

English, but seeming to derive as much elevation and comfort from bad

English as from good):--

"There is a holy city,

A world of light above.

Above the stairs and regions,[A]

Built by the God of love.

"An everlasting temple,

And saints arrayed in white

There serve their great Redeemer

And dwell with him in light.

"The meanest child of glory

Outshines the radiant sun;

But who can speak the splendor

Of Jesus on his throne?

"Is this the man of sorrows

Who stood at Pilate's bar,

Condemned by haughty Herod

And by his men of war?

"He seems a mighty conqueror,

Who spoiled the powers below,

And ransomed many captives

From everlasting woe.

"The hosts of saints around him

Proclaim his work of grace,

The patriarchs and prophets,

And all the godly race,

"Who speak of fiery trials

And tortures on their way;

They came from tribulation

To everlasting day.

"And what shall be my journey,

How long I'll stay below,

Or what shall be my trials,

Are not for me to know.

"In every day of trouble

I'll raise my thoughts on high,

I'll think of that bright temple

And crowns above the sky."

[Footnote A: Starry regions.]

I put in this whole hymn, because Sojourner, carried away with her own

feeling, sang it from beginning to end with a triumphant energy that

held the whole circle around her intently listening. She sang with

the strong barbaric accent of the native African, and with those

indescribable upward turns and those deep gutturals which give such a

wild, peculiar power to the negro singing,--but above all, with such an

overwhelming energy of personal appropriation that the hymn seemed to be

fused in the furnace of her feelings and come out recrystallized as a

production of her own.

It is said that Rachel was wont to chant the "Marseillaise" in a manner

that made her seem, for the time, the very spirit and impersonation of

the gaunt, wild, hungry, avenging mob which rose against aristocratic

oppression; and in like manner, Sojourner, singing this hymn, seemed to

impersonate the fervor of Ethiopia, wild, savage, hunted of all nations,

but burning after God in her tropic heart, and stretching her scarred

hands towards the glory to be revealed.

"Well, den ye see, after a while I thought I'd go back an' see de folks

on de ole place. Well, you know, de law had passed dat de culled folks

was all free; an' my old missis, she had a daughter married about dis

time who went to live in Alabama,--an' what did she do but give her my

son, a boy about de age of dis yer, for her to take down to Alabama?

When I got back to de ole place, they told me about it, an' I went right

up to see ole missis, an' says I,--

"'Missis, have you been an' sent my son away down to Alabama?'

"'Yes, I have,' says she; 'he's gone to live with your young missis.'

"'Oh, Missis,' says I, 'how could you do it?'

"'Poh!' says she, 'what a fuss you make about a little nigger! Got more

of 'em now than you know what to do with.'

"I tell you, I stretched up. I felt as tall as the world!

"'Missis,' says I, '_I'll have my son back agin!_'

"She laughed.

"'_You_ will, you nigger? How you goin' to do it? You ha'n't got no

money.'

"'No, Missis,--but _God_ has,--an' you'll see He'll help me!'--an' I

turned round an' went out.

"Oh, but I _was_ angry to have her speak to me so haughty an' so

scornful, as ef my chile wasn't worth anything. I said to God, 'O Lord,

render unto her double!' It was a dreadful prayer, an' I didn't know how

true it would come.

"Well, I didn't rightly know which way to turn; but I went to the Lord,

an' I said to Him, 'O Lord, ef I was as rich as you be, an' you was as

poor as I be, I'd help you,--you _know_ I would; and, oh, do help me!'

An' I felt sure then that He would.

"Well, I talked with people, an' they said I must git the case before a

grand jury. So I went into the town when they was holdin' a court, to

see ef I could find any grand jury. An' I stood round the

court-house, an' when they was a-comin' out, I walked right up to the

grandest-lookin' one I could see, an' says I to him,--

"'Sir, be you a grand jury?'

"An' then he wanted to know why I asked, an' I told him all about it;

an' he asked me all sorts of questions, an' finally he says to me,--

"'I think, ef you pay me ten dollars, that I'd agree to git your son for

you.' An' says he, pointin' to a house over the way, 'You go 'long an'

tell your story to the folks in that house, an' I guess they'll give you

the money.'

"Well, I went, an' I told them, an' they gave me twenty dollars; an'

then I thought to myself, 'Ef ten dollars will git him, twenty dollars

will git him _sartin_.' So I carried it to the man all out, an' said,--

"'Take it all,--only be sure an' git him'

"Well, finally they got the boy brought back; an' then they tried to

frighten him, an' to make him say that I wasn't his mammy, an' that he

didn't know me; but they couldn't make it out. They gave him to me,

an' I took him an' carried him home; an' when I came to take off his

clothes, there was his poor little back all covered with scars an' hard

lumps, where they'd flogged him.

"Well, you see, honey, I told you how I prayed the Lord to render unto

her double. Well, it came true; for I was up at ole missis' house not

long after, an' I heerd 'em readin' a letter to her how her daughter's

husband had murdered her,--how he'd thrown her down an' stamped the life

out of her, when he was in liquor; an' my ole missis, she giv a screech,

an' fell flat on the floor. Then says I, 'O Lord, I didn't mean all

that! You took me up too quick.'

"Well, I went in an' tended that poor critter all night. She was out of

her mind,--a-cryin', an' callin' for her daughter; an' I held her poor

ole head on my arm, an' watched for her as ef she 'd been my babby. An'

I watched by her, an' took care on her all through her sickness after

that, an' she died in my arms, poor thing!"

"Well, Sojourner, did you always go by this name?"

"No, 'deed! My name was Isabella; but when I left the house of bondage,

I left everything behind. I wa'n't goin' to keep nothin' of Egypt on me,

an' so I went to the Lord an' asked Him to give me a new name. And the

Lord gave me Sojourner, because I was to travel up an' down the land,

showin' the people their sins, an' bein' a sign unto them. Afterwards

I told the Lord I wanted another name, 'cause everybody else had two

names; and the Lord gave me Truth, because I was to declare the truth to

the people.

"Ye see some ladies have given me a white satin banner," she said,

pulling out of her pocket and unfolding a white banner, printed with

many texts, such as, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all

the inhabitants thereof," and others of like nature. "Well," she said,

"I journeys round to camp-meetins, an' wherever folks is, an' I sets up

my banner, an' then I sings, an' then folks always comes up round me,

an' then I preaches to 'em. I tells 'em about Jesus, an' I tells 'em

about the sins of this people. A great many always comes to hear me; an'

they 're right good to me, too, an' say they want to hear me agin."

We all thought it likely; and as the company left her, they shook hands

with her, and thanked her for her very original sermon; and one of the

ministers was overheard to say to another, "There's more of the gospel

in that story than in most sermons."

Sojourner stayed several days with us, a welcome guest. Her conversation

was so strong, simple, shrewd, and with such a droll flavoring of humor,

that the Professor was wont to say of an evening, "Come, I am dull,

can't you get Sojourner up here to talk a little?" She would come up

into the parlor, and sit among pictures and ornaments, in her simple

stuff gown, with her heavy travelling-shoes, the central object of

attention both to parents and children, always ready to talk or to sing,

and putting into the common flow of conversation the keen edge of some

shrewd remark.

"Sojourner, what do you think of Women's Rights?"

"Well, honey, I 's ben to der meetins, an' harked a good deal. Dey

wanted me fur to speak. So I got up. Says I,--'Sisters, I a'n't clear

what you'd be after. Ef women want any rights more 'n dey 's got, why

don't dey jes' _take 'em_, an' not be talkin' about it?' Some on 'em

came round me, an' asked why I didn't wear Bloomers. An' I told 'em I

had Bloomers enough when I was in bondage. You see," she said, "dey used

to weave what dey called nigger-cloth, an' each one of us got jes' sech

a strip, an' had to wear it width-wise. Them that was short got along

pretty well, but as for me"--She gave an indescribably droll glance at

her long limbs and then at us, and added,--"Tell _you_, I had enough of

Bloomers in them days."

Sojourner then proceeded to give her views of the relative capacity of

the sexes, in her own way.

"S'pose a man's mind holds a quart, an' a-woman's don't hold but a pint;

ef her pint is _full_, it's as good as his quart."

Sojourner was fond of singing an extraordinary lyric, commencing,--

"I'm on my way to Canada,

That cold, but happy land;

The dire effects of Slavery

I can no longer stand.

O righteous Father,

Do look down on me

And help me on to Canada,

Where colored folks are free!"

The lyric ran on to state, that, when the fugitive crosses the Canada

line,

"The Queen comes down unto the shore,

With arms extended wide,

To welcome the poor fugitive

Safe onto Freedom's side."

In the truth thus set forth she seemed to have the most simple faith.

But her chief delight was to talk of "glory," and to sing hymns whose

burden was,--

"O glory, glory, glory,

Won't you come along with me?"