periods. On the contrary, the opening scenes | Aristotle, familiar only with the waters of 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 fauna 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 seashore with an equal extent of seashore 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 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 may 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 palæontology 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 encyclopædias 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 toward them, the science of paleontology 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. LOUIS AGASSIZ. STRIKE, BUT HEAR.-Eury biades lifting up his staff as if he was going to strike, Themistocles said, "Strike if you will, but hear." PLUTARCH. THE LEPER. OOM for the leper! Room!" And as he came The cry passed on: "Room for the leper! Room !" Sunrise was slanting on the | Whose shadows lay so Whose shadows lay so still upon his path Had put their beauty forth beneath the eye Of Judah's loftiest noble. He was young And eminently beautiful, and life Mantled in eloquent fulness on his lip And sparkled in his glance, and in his mien Rosy and beautiful, and There was a gracious pride that every eye Followed with benisons; and this was he! With the soft airs of summer there had come A torpor on his frame which not the speed city gates, from the hills The early-risen poor were coming in Duly and cheerfully to their Of his best barb, nor music, nor the blast Of the bold huntsman's horn, nor aught that stirs toil, and up Rose the sharp hammer's clink and the far hum Of moving wheels and multitudes astir, The death-like images of the dark away. Matron and child and pitiless manhood, all 'Twas now the first Of the Judean autumn, and the leaves, The spirit to its bent, might drive away. And very air were steeped in sluggishness. Circled with livid purple covered him; scales, Comfort unto him. Yea, he went his way, From all thou lovest, away thy feet must Sick and heartbroken and alone, to die; flee, For God had cursed the leper. It was noon, And Helon knelt beside a stagnant pool In the lone wilderness and bathed his brow, Hot with the burning leprosy, and touched The loathsome water to his fevered lips, Praying that he might be so blest to die. Footsteps approached, and, with no strength to flee, He took a little water in his hand He drew the covering closer on his lip, Crying, "Unclean! unclean!" and, in the folds And laid it on his brow and said, "Be clean!" Of the coarse sackcloth shrouding up his face, And, lo! the scales fell from him, and his He fell upon the earth till they should pass. Nearer the Stranger came, and, bending o'er The leper's prostrate form, pronounced his name: "Helon!" The voice was like the master tone Of a rich instrument, most strangely sweet, Love and awe Mingled in the regard of Helon's eye A kingly condescension graced his lips His eye was blue and calm as is the sky As if his heart were moved, and, stooping down, blood Coursed with delicious coolness through his veins, And his dry palms grew moist, and on his brow The dewy softness of an infant's stole. NATHANIEL P. WILLIS. THE FORGET-ME-NOT. THERE is a little and a pretty flower That you may find in many a gardenplot; Yet wild it is, and grows amid the stour Of public roads as in close-wattled bower: Its name in English is "forget-me-not." Sweet was the fancy of those antique ages That put a heart in every stirring leaf, Writing deep morals Nature's upon pages, Turning sweet flowers into deathless sages, To calm our joy and sanctify our grief. And gladly would I know the man or child- Fain would I know, and yet I can but guess, How the blue floweret won a name so sweet. Did some fond mother, bending down to | And those who reared them must have been bless Her sailing son with last and fond caress, Give the small plant to guard him through the fleet? Did a kind maid that thought her lover all Stout men when they were young; For oft I've heard my grandsire speak How men were growing thin and weak. His heart was twined, I do believe, That still should breathe and whisper, For many a long, long Sabbath-day. "Think of me"? |