CHAPTER XII. (december)

(DECEMBER)

"A fire-mist and a planet, A crystal and a cell, A jelly fish and a saurian And caves where the cavemen dwell; Then a sense of law and beauty And a face turned from the clod-- Some call it Evolution, And others call it God."

--William Herbert Carruth.

THE END OF THE WORLD

So the Ice Ages and their glaciers and the Romans and their Cæsars melted away. We know them only by the marks they left on the walls of time. But why this constant doing and undoing of things? We have seen it going on from the very beginning; rock crumbling to dust, dust changing back to rock; rocks raised up into mountains, mountains worn down to plains; then more mountains, and on through the same cycle of endless change; as if always starting the whole thing over again.

What is it all about? Are we getting anywhere? If so, where?

Ever since men looked out upon the world around them and began to think, they have puzzled not only about the causes but the purpose of this endless drama of creation and decay. Some said one thing; some said another. The Persian poet who wrote those fine lines about the lion and the lizard in the ruins of the palaces meant to say that's all that everything comes to; all things, men included, return to the elements of which they were made and that's the end of them. So, said he, what's the use of bothering one's head about it? There's nothing to be learned. One verse of his famous song reads like this:

"Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and saint, and heard great argument About it and about; but evermore Came out by the same door wherein I went."

But Science, as we shall now see, has a better answer.

I. Nothing Happens

In the first place you must have noticed as we came along through this little book that nothing happens in this world of ours; everything is under a government of laws. Not only did it turn out that there was method in the apparent madness of the sea but we found method everywhere. It was not chance that made our worlds, whether they were born full-grown or grew up piece by piece. And we see the same forces at work in small things as in the great. The force that keeps the earth in its orbit is just as careful to catch and plant the tiny seeds of the grasses and the pine-trees drifting forward in the wind, so keeping the world clothed with life and verdure.

ALL NATURE UNDER A GOVERNMENT OF LAW

So with the seasons with all that they mean in the life of the world; spring never fails to follow winter. Little things happen that make spring "late," as we say; but spring itself never fails to come and always in its right place in the procession of the year. All this because the earth stays in its orbit and spins on its axis. Watches break their mainsprings, clocks run down. These things "happen"; but we never think of saying that the mainspring or the wheels "happened," or that they "happened" into their places in the watch. The worlds not only make their appointed round as regularly as the wheels of a watch but they never run down, and the power that keeps them going and in their places never breaks. If it ever occurred in any other way--if we should hear of a world flying out of its orbit and going banging around among the other worlds, we could talk of "happening."

NATURE'S ACCIDENT INSURANCE SYSTEM

We might call these laws that make it so certain that nature's business will go on as usual, rain or shine, the Accident Insurance of the Universe. We have nothing quite like it in human insurance systems; for these only make it up to you--the best they can--after some accident has happened. Nature's insurance system, on the other hand, makes it certain that nothing will happen to change the main course of things. The protective insurance of the universe is woven right through Nature itself. The continents, for example, were bound, in due course, to rise in their places, because it is the nature of cooling masses to shrink and for the outside to cool the faster and to harden and to wrinkle up. It doesn't matter whether the cooling mass is a little baked apple or a big hot earth.

By representing the great geologic periods of time in the form of a clock-face a writer in the Scientific American enables us to form a rough conception of their duration, their distinguishing features, and their relations to one another, according to ideas associated with the theory of La Place, but which have been considerably modified in the light of later reasoning and investigation. The view now generally accepted, for example, is that the Azoic era was longer than all subsequent time. But, taking the picture as it stands, each "hour" represents 3,000,000 years. For a quarter of the total period up to the very recent appearance of man "there was darkness upon the face of the deep." Next after the Azoic was the Laurentian Period, when "the dry land appeared." Later came the dawn of life, and this life, like the inanimate matter which preceded it, kept rising and continues to rise, as the ages pass, to higher, more beautiful, and nobler forms. ]

Nor was it an accident that the continents in their original form grew larger with the fat of the land that was added to them under the action of the chemistry of the air. You see Nature must understand chemistry or things wouldn't come out right in the laboratory, as they always do if you have made no mistakes. Ever think of that, Mr. High School Boy?

II. The Strangest Thing of All That Didn't Happen

But the strangest thing of all that didn't happen in this history of the world and its making I'm going to tell you about now.

KINSHIP OF KITTENS AND APPLE-TREES

You remember what I said of the apple-tree in Chapter V (page 93), how nobody who didn't know it to be true would believe that little Miss Greenleaf and old Mr. Root and rough Mr. Bark and lovely Miss Blossom were not only born under the same roof but were as closely related as a pussy-cat and her nest full of kittens. I didn't mention the kittens then, but just suppose I had done so; and then had gone on to say that kittens are relations of the apple family and that all birds are related to all kittens, and that both are kindred of that terrible Mr. Cetiosaurus that we met in the Bad Lands of Dakota.

Would you have believed it?

No? Well, I don't wonder. It was quite a while before the wise men of science believed it. Now not only is this idea of the origin of all living things--animal and vegetable--universally accepted by men of science, but every educated person is supposed to know about it. It is always, and as a matter of course, put into the school-books dealing with the history of nature; just as in all histories we are sure to see Columbus landing in 1492 and George Washington being inaugurated April 30, 1789.

Most people, including the scientists, used to think that each kind of plant and animal was given its present form in the first place and that this form had never changed. This was known as the "special creation" theory; while the idea that the various kinds of plants and animals we now know gradually developed from quite different forms is called the theory of "evolution." Among the curious facts that finally led educated people everywhere to believe this strangest of all the strange fairy tales of the land of science were these:

AS WE READ THE ROCKS FROM THE BOTTOM UP

The remains and imprints of plant and animal life of long ago which we find in the rocks show successions of related but different forms in the rocks of different ages. At the beginning in the lowest rocks the forms are much alike, but grow more and more unlike as we climb these stairs of time. At first there are no animals with backbones; then there come animals with backbones that resemble each other in general build; and finally such wide varieties of backboned creatures as fish, birds, horses, and men. And so with endless varieties of birds and beasts and creeping things and the trees and the grasses of the field.

Sometimes the differences between these apparently related forms, as we find them in the rocks, are very great; but everything goes to show that this is because there are missing pages, so to speak, in the great stone book. When you remember how long it takes to make one of these layers of stone, and what they go through in cracking and twisting and wearing down on their way back to dust and the sea, and how quickly the remains of big animals--to say nothing of plants and insects--are destroyed, you must agree that the wonder is that we have any records at all. Yet so enormous has been the number of plants and animals that have died in the course of the world's history that there have been found hundreds and thousands of these remains and imprints between the layers of stone. In all cases the fashions in form change from age to age; and the longer the time, as shown by the thickness of the rock, the greater the change.

THE RABBIT THAT TURNED INTO A HORSE

The horse, which has been such a faithful carrier for man since man and horse arrived from the lower ranges of life, also brought with him on the way up one of the most complete of these strange autobiographies that our brother animals have recorded with their bones. The most of this story of the horse was found in the rocks of our Western States, but the first chapter of it saw the light about forty years ago in England. When the bones were found in the rock deposits of that country known as London Clay they looked so unhorselike that a famous paleontologist (as the students of these ancient anatomies are called) gave it a name which means "rabbit-like beast." But in rock of the same age in Wyoming they afterward found the bones of an animal that looked a little more like a horse, but plainly a close relation of the rabbit-like beast. They went on finding different forms, through thirteen successive stages of rock history, and with each new period the form kept getting larger and more horselike until they came to a horse with three toes; and finally to one with the single big toe which we call a hoof. Instead of the other two toes there were those two little lumps that you can feel in any horse's foot just above the hoof. These are the ends of two small splintlike bones that are all there is left of the other two toes.

So there have been found in the rock records more or less complete serial stories of thousands of plants and animals. In the case of man, not only do we find that there were once human beings on earth like the caveman with low forehead and huge jaw, but nothing has ever been found to indicate that there were any higher types of human beings in existence in his day. And both the caveman and the handsomest human beings of to-day--the captain of our football team, for example--have essentially the same bodily framework as the monkey tribe. This does not mean that man--even so low a creature as the caveman--descended from monkeys, any more than the fact that he has a backbone means he descended from humming-birds. But the backbones in humming-birds, monkeys, and men show that all are descended from older types of backboned creatures. As monkeys and men are much more alike than men and birds they are evidently more closely related.

We might suppose, to be sure, that men and all other forms of life which they resemble in any way were so made from the beginning; that is, if we hadn't learned from the records of the rocks that they weren't so made from the beginning. Yet, even after that, we might go on supposing that each species was created separately, but that the form was changed from age to age. But in that case what are you going to say to this:

In man's body are several organs that are useless and often harmful. Other animals, also, contain among useful organs some that are "out-of-date," as we would say if we were speaking of some old machines in a machine-shop. Why, in making a brand-new species, shouldn't Nature have all the latest improvements from the start, just as man does in building a brand-new home? If each species was separately created it is hard to understand why these useless or harmful organs should be kept; but if one species grew out of another, by gradual improvement, just as cities grow out of villages, this is exactly what we might expect.

One of these useless organs in man is called the "vermiform appendix." It is always getting its name in the papers by giving trouble to some prominent man. Now this appendix, while a perfect nuisance to human beings, is just the thing for cows and other grass-eating animals. In them it is very large and of great use in digestion, while in the case of man and the monkey family it has shrunk into a little affair that puts in all its time either doing nothing or getting out of fix.

III. Upward; Always Upward

These are some of the reasons why the various varieties of animals are supposed to have descended from common ancestors and to have undergone endless changes of form; changes as strange as anything that was ever written into a fairy story or acted out in a Christmas pantomime. There are other things quite as convincing and even more thrilling to read about, such as the little theatre in the chicken's egg where strange, changing shadows re-enact the drama of ancient life; but these I am here passing by because my pages are running out and I want the rest of them to speak of what seems to me to be the greatest lesson of this whole book; the greatest and most useful and happiest lesson Science or any kind of book can teach; namely, that not only is the universe governed by Laws and Mind, but that all these laws act together as one Great Law and are working out one general result, the constant advance of all things toward a higher life.

HOW MAN HAS RISEN AS HE DESCENDED

As there was a period in human history when there were no human beings on earth higher than the cave-dweller, so there was a time when the highest forms of animal and vegetable life were minute creatures and plants consisting only of a single cell. It is such low forms of vegetable life that make the scum on the still waters of a pond. Step by step, in both the animal and vegetable world, rose the higher forms. The descent of man from lower forms of life used to be considered by many people as a thought that degraded humanity, but it is the most promising fact in all nature. The striking thing is, not that we are related in some way to the apes and the cavemen but that such a creature as an ape or a caveman should have helped develop such a beautiful thing as a little child.

This progress has not been steadily upward. The world of life, like the surface of the globe itself, has had its ups and downs. Wonderful nations like Greece and Rome have risen and flourished and passed away, but they left the best of themselves, the part that time cannot destroy. The Greeks taught us literature and art and the grace of life. The Romans gave us a science of government and a solid way of doing practical things, such as the building of good roads and bridges. The great lesson of history is that civilization and human liberty and all the things that make life worth living have not only survived the fall of empires but stand to-day on higher and firmer ground than they ever did before.

THE WORLD THAT MOTHER MADE

But do you know who was at the bottom of it all? Mother! All the things that men have done in the development of national life, with its arts and industries, everything we call civilization, grew out of the life and industry of the home, and it was mother who finally made the home. The mother idea came into the world with the first seed that ever started out to make its own way; for the mother plant had provided it with food enough to keep it going until it could get well-established in business. But the kind of mothers we know, mothers who stay with their babies and feed them, came very late in the long story of life. In the early days the world was not only without flowers and birds and the beautiful trees and varied landscapes we know, but it was motherless, in the sense that we understand mothers. In the lowest forms of life, such as the insects, the mothers and children never saw each other at all; for among the insects just as it is to-day the mother simply laid the eggs and then, before the little insects were born, passed away. Even among the fish, who are much closer relations of ours than the insects--since fish belong to the great brotherhood of the backbone--the sense of motherhood doesn't get beyond looking after the eggs. So with the next higher group to which the frogs belong; and the next, the reptiles. Only with the birds, the next group above the reptiles, do we begin to see what motherhood means. Then at the very top of the list come the class of animals whose very name has "mamma" in it; the "mammalia." Among these, even outside the human race, we find very striking examples of family love and devotion. The gorillas, for instance, although they haven't what one would call an attractive face, are good to their folks. Not only does Mamma Gorilla nurse her babies and carry them in her arms much as a human mother does, and fight and die for them, but a famous African traveller tells of a Mamma Gorilla who stayed safe with the babies in their humble home of sticks in the fork of a tree while Papa Gorilla sat all night at the foot of it, with his back against the trunk, to protect them from a leopard that had been seen prowling around.

Among most animals below man the babies are soon able to leave mother and shift for themselves, but in the case of human beings the baby is helpless for a much longer time. So, even among the lowest savages, it was necessary for father and mother to keep together and look after their children. Thus grew up family life; and out of the family the tribe; and out of many tribes living together and closely related, grew first small and then larger nations. Yet, always at the beginning, it was the mother, more than the father, who looked after the children and taught them, so bringing before the world the idea of doing things, not for one's self alone but for others. From this came the mutual giving and helping which made national life possible, and that is making this a better and better world to live in.

IV. The Great Unseen

So it is very plain not only that the end, the purpose of all this machinery and march of things that we have been going through since the beginning of Chapter I, is to make life better, more beautiful both in form and character, but to show that "all nature is on the side of those who try to rise." It is plain also that this end must have been foreseen and intended from the beginning; for, from the very start each change in the world and in life was a preparation for another and a greater change. The change from rock to soil made plant life possible; the growth of plants made animal life possible, and so on up through the long succession of changes in this tree of life by which all things are related and which gave us the infinite variety of good things we already have--fruit, homes, churches, schools, art galleries, books, railroads and steamships that make the whole world neighbors; the telegraph, the newspapers, and the magazines that carry thought and knowledge and plans for the common good so fast and far that already it is as if a whole nation with its millions had a heart and brain in common.

Man himself, you see, has become one of the great forces of nature in the evolution of nature, in the blossoming out and fruit-bearing of things. But now notice this: Back of all that man does and all that the rest of nature does is the great controlling force called Mind; and this Mind is invisible. If I should say of some great man that he had a powerful mind you would know just what I meant; but if anybody should ask "What did his mind look like?" you would think that was an odd question, wouldn't you?

From the painting by Burne-Jones

THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION ]

THE MYSTERIOUS PRINCESS HIDDEN IN THE BUD

So it is and has been from the beginning. We can see the results of changes of one thing into another but never just how the changing is done. While it is no longer believed that species were given a certain form in the beginning and that they have always kept that form, it is still true that each species comes into being from some unseen cause--"all of a sudden," as it were. Because species thus seem to vary of themselves, and not for any reason that we can see these changes are called "spontaneous variations." Always back of the material nature we can see is a nature that is not material; a part of nature that, like the mind of man, we can neither see nor hear nor feel nor know by any of our five senses. Some Unseen Power forms the baby plant out of the seed; some power changes the leaves hidden away in the bud into the petals of the flower. When the leaves gather to form the bud, like little hands playing "button, button, who's got the button," where do you suppose the flower is? It isn't. It has not yet begun to be. But soon, as if some magician had waved his wand and said "Presto! Change!" the pink petals begin to form there in the dark of the cup and, first thing we know, out steps Miss Blossom, all in her pink and gold like a princess dressed for a ball!

But always hidden in a mystery these changes take place. We can peep into the growing bud as often as we like and we will never catch the fairies making the dress, nor the princess putting it on. We always see the thing after it is done!

WONDERFUL ART BUT WHERE IS THE ARTIST?

Another thing: How do the fairies of Roseland remember every spring just how a rose looked, when the roses of last year have been dead and gone so long? You see they work without a model, something great artists seldom do; and in some kinds of work, as busts and portraits and landscapes, never do at all. Even the most powerful microscope doesn't show any pattern in the seed for the seed to go by in growing into the finished plant; or in an egg to tell it what kind of a bird it is expected to be. No, not the trace of a pattern. What then, guides the growth of the seed; of an oak, say, so that it finally and always takes the family form? Some Power, evidently, as intelligent as the power that moves the hand of the human artist when he paints that oak into his landscape. How many of us have stopped to think that not only in the world of mind but in the material world itself, all forms of power are as invisible as the fairies that work unseen in the rosebud and the little birds' egg and the big rock? All power--what we call steam power, wind power, electric power and the rest--are not only unseen but unseeable, unfeelable, untastable. We know steam power only when heat gets into the water and makes steam; electric power only when it gets into a wire or a dynamo; or, passing by unseen ways through the air, moves the wireless telegraph receiver; gravity power only when it moves something as the water of a waterfall; or when it is helping to hold things--the earth and the other worlds--in their appointed paths.

HIDE AND SEEK IN THE LIBRARY

You can easily see why evolution is the most talked about of all phases of science--of the study of this wonderful world we live in. One reason is it's such an astonishing thing in itself, this relationship of all forms of life, trees, kittens, birds, and everything; another reason is that in reading the books on evolution you're taken into every field of knowledge and into the most curious and striking aspect of things in those fields. Could anything be stranger, for example, than a little theatre in a chicken's egg, over which pass strange shadowy forms that seem to retell, in a kind of moving picture show, the story of how one form of life developed out of another?

Drummond's "Ascent of Man" tells about that and covers the whole subject of evolution. It is one of the books which no one who has heard of this wonderful story of life should fail to read. Doctor Drummond's way of telling the story is very attractive. Readers from the Eighth Grade up to the Eightieth will delight in it, and they won't stop until they read it from cover to cover. I'll guarantee that!

Then take such a book as "The World of Life," by Wallace. "Alice in Wonderland" is nothing to it. Here are some of the things you will find in it:

How there got to be different kinds of rabbits and what islands have to do with it.

(Islands are almost as prominent in the story of evolution as they are in the story of adventure. There are Robinson Crusoes until you can't rest!)

How the pig in the struggle of life won out as usual.

Why the peacock has such a fine tail and how he overdid it.

How the elephant saved his life by lengthening his nose.

How the birds traded their teeth for feathers.

How shelled creatures coiled and uncoiled their shells.

Why we miss the "missing links." (As you go into this subject of evolution you will hear a good deal about missing links.)

How they know butterfly wings are made first and the coloring and patterns laid on afterward.

How much of a butterfly's beauty is probably known to the butterflies themselves.

How Nature seems to make things just to be pretty.

And these are just a few of the things in one of Doctor Wallace's books.

There are so many books on this biggest of all nature topics--Evolution--that they make quite a library in themselves. The most famous of these books is Darwin's "Origin of Species," and it is not at all hard to understand. Other books bearing directly or indirectly on evolution are "Animals of the Past," by Lucas, "Creatures of Other Days," by Hutchinson, Fiske's "Destiny of Man," and "Evolution and Religion." A book for older readers--one of the latest and most comprehensive treatments of the subject--is Osborn's "Origin and Evolution of Life."]

Then he was such a fine man personally. Why, what do you think he did? Although he thought out the principle of evolution independently of Darwin, and wrote an essay on it before Darwin had ever given his views to the world, yet after Darwin's "Origin of Species" came out Wallace gave Darwin all the credit, and in his own autobiography always referred to the theory of evolution as the "Darwinian Theory." Yet Wallace had a very good reason for taking this generous attitude, as you will see from his autobiography and other writings, and you are quite likely to find the reason in articles on Darwin or Wallace or Evolution.

The relations of Darwin and Wallace furnish one of the finest examples in history of the best thing in the world--human friendship.

Of course, like so many other great men, Wallace was one of those boys whose minds never grow old. Read in his autobiography how on the day he first discovered a new species of butterfly it gave him a violent headache, and he had to go to bed to get rid of it and quiet his nerves--he was that worked up!

Darwin was much the same sort of a man. Everything in the world was interesting to him. He wrote a whole book about "Fish Worms," for example. And although probably the most famous man in the history of natural science he was as humble as could be, always looking for the truth and ready to accept criticisms no matter how much they might upset his own previous conclusions, provided these opposing views were supported by evidence. Of course you will want to know more about his life, and you will find more in the "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," edited by his son.

How do you suppose this boy began being a great man--by collecting beetles! Beetles and outdoor sport were his chief delight.

USE OF THE INDEX

SOME THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH THIS INDEX

I shouldn't be surprised if you thought that an index was the dullest part of a book.

But it all depends! As a matter of fact, with your help, I am sure I can make this index of ours one of the most interesting things in the whole story; for, like the H. & S., it gives you a chance to "come into the game." The mind enjoys books and grows upon them much as the body grows on food, but, as in the case of both food and books--and books are food--the good you get depends not only on the food but how you season it and eat it. You can't expect everything of the cook!

Everybody knows, of course, how to use an index to look things up once in a while and it saves time if the index not only tells the page on which a given subject is referred to, but conveys some idea of what that reference is about, as this index tries to do. If, for example, you are studying the Alpine regions in school you may already have covered the question of how flowing water carves mountain valleys, but you may not have had anything about why the Alps don't run north and south, as so many of earth's great ranges do; and so what could be a more interesting thing for you to take into those delightful class discussions?

Your teacher knows, although you may not have realized it, that these class talks and debates by the pupils themselves are the big thing in modern teaching. The best education, we know nowadays, isn't the mere cramming down of facts, as people used to think. It's training in thinking, and in standing on one's own feet!

But memory training is important too; and an index is the best thing in the world for that. Take some subject you're studying in school--mountains, for example--they're always studying such big things as mountains, the work of rivers, and so on; or if they aren't to-day they will be tomorrow. Look at the references as questions to yourself and see how well you can answer them: "How do mountains help make water-gates for the rivers?" and "Why do they have earthquakes in regions where mountains haven't got done with their growing?"

Then you can have a lot of fun with these questions at home and with boy friends, after you have read the book together. For instance: Just how did the pebbles help dig the Grand Canyon? And that's a poser for many grown people too--people who've travelled and met the Grand Canyon face to face! Try it on Father. Yes, and Teacher too. There are none of her boys that a teacher is so proud of as the boys that have initiative--go-aheaditiveness--and can ask good questions as well as answer them.

But, best of all, you can find no end of things to write about for your language work in school and for the little books of your own that I've already suggested in the H. & S. Take the subject of pebbles, for example. Although this whole book has to do with the life and adventures of pebbles, I haven't put the facts together in just the way you will if you follow out the references under the heading "Pebbles" in this index. If you don't happen to remember how pebbles act as bankers for the farmers, how they helped make the Great Lakes, built the Grand Canyon, and so on, look these things up and then, as they thus become digested in your mind, write about them in your own way--the way you'd talk if you were telling somebody about it. Do that and you'll have something! one of those things that mothers show to the neighbors, and that teachers show to visitors.

Of course you'll have to have a name for your story and you'll think of plenty: "What One of My Pebbles Told Me," "The Pebbles in the World's Work," "What a Wonderful Thing a Pebble Is!" "Why Common Pebbles are Worth More than Diamonds"; for of course a diamond is a kind of pebble.

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH YOURSELF

In all this you will not only find you'll have a good time, but, let me tell you, you'll be getting the best part of your education; you'll be getting acquainted with yourself, your undeveloped powers of memory--reasoning--expression. You'll find before you get so very old that one of the most important elements of success, of doing your part in the world's great work of making itself better all the time, is in having something worth while to say and being able to say it.

This was the making of the Greeks; and the Greeks, you know, were the most wonderful people that ever were. It all started with old "Know Thyself" Thales of Miletus.

That's what did it!

INDEX

Africa, children's hand-work, illustrating home life of the natives, including the elephants and the lions, 168

Agassiz, Louis, and his stone hut, 43; adventure in the crevasse, 51; on the height of ancient glaciers, 123

Air, origin of, 16; how corals get their breath, 225

Alaska, the flowers and the snow line, 44

Albany, Atlantic tides at, 221

Alleghany Mountains, birth of, 10

Alps, mountain pastures, 41; how rain drops helped carve the Alps, 67; why the Alps don't run north and south, 136; glacial "autographs" on their walls, 255

Amazon River, its stately flow, 74

Ants, how they help teach men how volcanoes are built, 123

Apollo, how he lighted the world, 2

Appalachian Mountains, birth of, 10

Arabian desert, physiognomy and complexion, 165

Arabian Sea, why its waves salute the Himalayas, 140

Arabs, life in the desert, 183; and the Simoom, 184

Atlas Mountains, morning beauty of, 163

Atoms, defined, relation to molecules, 110

Aurora, the dawn goddess and her chariot, 2

Avalanches, impulsiveness of; snap-shot at one in motion, 63

Bad Lands, why so called, 114

Bar Harbor, Nature's remarkable masonry in Castle Rock, 228

Bald Mountains, how they got their crowns shaved off, 26, 28, 123

Beavers, as lake makers, 192

Bedding planes, defined, 217

Bees, and Alpine flowers, 45; why they hide from the cloud shadows, 56; shape of honey cells and basaltic columns, 243

Beetles, varieties in desert places, 180; use of poison gas, 182

Big Round Top Mountain, how it lost its peak, 248

Birds, life in the desert, 178

Bombs (volcanic), what they are and how they are made, 129

Boulders, Agassiz' monument, 54; travels of Plymouth Rock, 64; boulders on a New England hill, 145; why the Indians worshipped a boulder, 146; the strange stranger on Mount Abu, 147; as mountain climbers, 147, 152; why there are no big caves in boulder regions, 148; how boulders help tell the secret of the Ice Age, 149; how torrents help shape, 151; how glaciers carry, 151; how boulders ride on the water, 153; how Jack Frost builds boulder walls, 154; how the sun helps shape boulders, 155;

Geikie on the story told by a conglomerate boulder, 155; Ruskin on boulders in art, 157; why boulders sometimes jump up from the ground, 158; how rain drops split boulders, 171; how boulders shiver their skins off, 170; boulders in the rock mills of the sea, 216; how perched boulders are perched, 149; the perched boulder in Bronx Park, in New York City, and its autograph, 250

Bridal Veil Falls, how it got its name and why it hurries to "catch the train," 74

Butterflies, how they help in Alpine flower gardening, 46; why they hide from the cloud shadows, 56

Cactus, the desert water bottle, 174

Cactus wren, how she bars her front door against her bad neighbors, 177

Cæsar, Julius, his literary style compared to that of Mr. Glacier, 254; how he and Mr. Glacier went into winter quarters, 256

Canada, her sea terraces for the gannets, 223

Canada thistles, and the Siberian "wind witches," 178

Canyons, deepened by glaciers, 26, 37; how pebbles helped make the Grand Canyon, 82; how long a mile is--straight down! 87; how the Grand Canyon swallows you up, 88; how rivers wrote the history of the Grand Canyon and how they cut the leaves, 88

Caravan, the marching camels and their shadows, 185

Carbonic acid gas, and air making, 16; how it helped make coal with one hand and the Ice Age with the other, 20; how it helps the volcanoes feed the world, 128

Carpathian Mountains, why they do not border the sea, 138; their ups and downs under the sea, 230

Castle Head, a remarkable example of Nature's masonry, 228

Catskill Mountains, how they were made, 116

Cavemen, a caveman's art note on mammoths, 22; why they were the handsomest men of their day, 267; the joyous lesson they helped teach, 269

Caves, relation to natural bridges, 85; why large ones are never found in boulder regions, 148; their sightless inhabitants, 186

Centipede, his numerous feet and objectionable character 62; how the trap door spider slams the door in his face, 182

Centrifugal force, and the birth of worlds, 4; and the direction of mountain ranges, 137

Ceratosaurus, his dreadfulness and his name, 23; and Nature's dream of the coming of man, 23; one of our queer cousins, 264

Civilization, its constant advance, but with ups and downs, 269; the civilization that Mother made, 270

Coal, did it help bring on the Ice Age? 20; bad effect of coal making on plant and animal life--volcanoes to the rescue! 226; coal seams and the records of ancient life, 245

Colorado River, how it dug the Grand Canyon, 88

Conglomerate rock, why it is called "pudding stone," 96; conglomerate boulders as historians, 155; how made in the sea mills, 227

Continents, how they rose out of the sea, 8; how the fact that they are still rising helps the rivers get back to sea, 75; the continents and Nature's accident insurance, 262

Copernicus, and the discovery that there are worlds of worlds, 4

Coral islands and reefs, how the sea helps the corals build them, 225

Coyotes, as ventriloquists, 179; their night songs, 179; how they get a living, 180

Crater Lake, the blue lake in the volcano's mouth, 194, 195

Crevasse, origin of the word, 51; what a crevasse looks like, 51, 53; Agassiz' adventure in, 51; voices of, 54; their water-mills, 55; picture of a crevasse swallowing an avalanche, 63

Crystallization and the fairy land of change, 93; how the pebble caught cold and what came of it, 94; crystals in sugar and granite, 94; the great melting pot and the remaking of the rocks, 96; how old rocks hatch new ones by sitting on one another, 96; how mountain making helps, 97; how Mother Nature uses salt and soda in cooking rocks over and how she keeps these materials handy, 99; an illustration of how men of science study things out for the fun of it, 104; the crystal fairies and their curious ways, 106; how crystals help tell about dikes, 243

Dead Sea, its deadness and how it died, 207; and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, 209; what "Lot's Wife" looks like to-day, 210; ancient history on the Dead Sea's walls, 249

Deltas, why delta river mouths always multiply by two, 167

Descent of Man, how man has risen as he descended, 269

Desert, origin of Lybian (myth), 2; enigmas of, 161; the desert and the Sphinx, 162; physiography and coloring, 163; "Baths of the Damned," 165; river "skeletons," 166; indications of former heavier rainfall, 166; Roman aqueducts, 166; "sand roses," 168; how the desert makes its sands, 168; its trade-mark on its sand grains, 172; why deserts are so cold at night, 170; how a simoom looks from the outside, 173; how it begins business, 184; the plant people of the desert, 174-175; how the Rose of Jericho goes to sea, 176; the cactus wren and how she bars her front door against her bad neighbors, 177; the "wind witches" of the steppes, 178; animal life in the desert, 178; the coyote as a ventriloquist, his night song, 179; bird life, 180; why the desert humming-birds have rusty coats, 180; how the trap-door spider slams the door in the centipede's face, 182; a beetle that uses poison gas, 182; wonderful flight of the vulture, 183; a day with the Arabs in the Sahara desert, 183; the cat, the dog, the Arab, and the struggle for life, 187, 188

Diamonds, form of their crystals, 107

Dikes, what one in New York City tells about marble making, 97; the iron walls near Spanish Peak, 235, 241; dikes in the rocks at Marblehead, 242; how dikes get their driving power, 244

Dinosaurs, their dreadfulness, their habits and their family name, 23

Diplodocus, his name, his gentle nature, his defensive tail and how it helped him at his meals, 24

Domes (Mt.), 123

Drift theory, 120

Drowned valleys, 212

Drumlin, why an Irish boy would know what "drumlin" means, 122

Dunes, 163

Earth, story of the spoiled boy who set it afire, 2; how much truth science finds in the Phaeton myth, 3; theories as to the earth's origin and how they compare with the Bible story, 17; watching worlds in the making, 5, 6; the sun and his pebble worlds, 6; how you can watch the world turn round, 7; how the continents came up out of the sea, 8, 14; lands the seas have swallowed, 11; reasons for thinking the continents won't go under again, 12; how earth's slowing up helped make mountains, 137

Earthquakes, how growing mountains make them, 86; earthquakes that travel incog., 158; how earthquakes are recorded in the veins of marble, 239; earthquakes and the earth's "faults," 243

Echoes, Arab superstitions about, 187

Electrons, how they act as messenger boys of the universe, 110

Emerson, on the industries of England, 214

England, her heavy losses of land to the sea, 214; how her drowned rivers helped make her great, 224

Eskers, defined, 122

Esparto grass, 176

Europe, how most of her rivers get their start, 73; her ragged outline and the "transgressions" of the sea, 219; Europe's geological biography and her mountain chains, 230

Evolution, was Nature dreaming of man's legs and arms when she designed the dinosaurs? 23; "some call it Evolution and others call it God," 260; answer of Science to the question "whither," 261; why nothing "happens," in the great course of things--The Accident Insurance System of the Universe, 262; kinship of kittens and apple trees, 264; universal acceptance of the evolution theory, 264; the old "special creation" theory, 265; and the mysterious special creation theory that Science has substituted, 274; facts that support the evolution theory; the story of changing forms recorded in the rocks, 265; the "rabbit" that turned into a horse, 266; as to men being descended from monkeys, 267; how evolution proves the world is getting better, 268; how man has risen as he descended, 269; the world that Mother made, 270

Family, the, and civilization, 271

"Faults," geological, defined, 243

Finland, its butterflies, and the left-over butterflies of the Ice Ages, 48

Fiords, how they were made by the Old Men of the Mountain, 254

Florida, her sympathetic sister lakes, 200

Folds, how the story of the crumpling of mountains is told in the veins of marble, 237

Fossils, how they help tell the story of marble, 100

Frost, how it helped build the stone "Temple of the Winds," 33; how it builds boulder walls, 154

Fujiyama, Mt., why it resembles Mount Rainier, 124

Galileo, and the discovery that there are worlds of worlds, 4

Geikie, on the conglomerate boulder as an historian, 230

Geodes, Nature's pebble jewel boxes and how they are made, 101

Geography, when all our geography was at the bottom of the sea, 8; how they study geography in Boston on rainy days, 68

Geysers, and the geyser basins, 165

Giant's Causeway, its architecture, 243

Gila monster, 181

Glacial Period. (See Ice Ages.)

Glacial tables, how stones go walking in glacier land, 62

Glacier Mills, 55

Glaciers, how snow changes itself to ice, 26; glaciers in their "working clothes," 29; how to make glaciers and icebergs in the schoolroom, 32; how glaciers helped make the gray stone "Temple of the Winds," 33; how the glaciers of the Ice Ages made the Great Lakes, 34; songs of the glacier and how it sings, 42, 56; a day's visit with the Alpine glaciers, 49; the crevasses and the adventure of Agassiz, 51; how long it took Agassiz to determine the nature of glacial movements, 52; why the peasants think the glacier has a soul, 54; Mr. Glacier's caterpillar tractor, 62; how the glaciers start Europe's rivers in business, 73; how pebbles tell on what part of a glacier they travelled, 251

Golden Gate, entrance to San Francisco harbor, how it was made, 224

Gorges, 26, 82

Grand Canyon, 88

Granite, ancient lineage and social standing among earth's rocks, 17; the Granites and the Fairyland of Change, 94; how they crystallize their neighbors, 103; how they help make sand, 170

Gravitation, how it pulls the worlds into roundness, 5; and helps them to grow up, 8; how it helps sea waves to salute the mountains, 139; equally careful in handling big worlds and little seeds, 261; like all power it is invisible and intangible, 276

Great Basin, records of the two great lakes it used to hold, 249

Great Lakes, how they were made in the Ice Ages, 34; an Ice Age lake that was greatest of all, 193; tides in the Great Lakes and tides in a teacup, 201; how the glaciers of the Ice Age tipped the Great Lakes up, 253

Great Salt Lake, ancient weather records on its walls, 249

Greek civilization, one of the things that do not die, 270

Harbor engineering of the rivers and the sea, 221, 222

Hieroglyphics, picture language of the Egyptians and how it was read, 258

Himalaya Mountains, glacial table on, a lesson in picture-reading, 59; why some of the Himalayas are called "hills," 117

Horse, evolution of, 266

Hot Springs (cause of), 165

Hudson River, action of the tides, 221; the Palisades, 241

Hydrogen, and the making of earth's air, 16

Ice Ages, theories as to their origin, 20; the three union stations of the ice trains, 27; how the glaciers put the Missouri River together, 29; how they pushed the Mississippi about, 30; how they turned rivers around and made waterfalls for New England, 31; how they chiselled out stone bowls for the Great Lakes, 34; how they made other lakes, 194; the thousand-year clock at Niagara Falls and what it tells about the Ice Age, 35; how the glaciers set Niagara Falls up in business, 36; Muir's eloquent tribute to the marvellous "busy work" of the snowflakes, 37; how the Ice Age glaciers went off and left the butterflies and the flowers in the Alps, 47; how the butterflies missed the train, 48; how Agassiz discovered the Ice Age, 52; how the glaciers moved the hills about, 117; travels of the boulders and how the glaciers rounded them, 146, 155; why there are no big caves in glaciated regions, 148; relation of the Ice Ages to the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee, 206; Burroughs's theory as to future Ice Ages, 219; what rain-drop autographs tell of the Ice Age, 246; a perched boulder and its autograph in a New York City park, 250; records of the Ice Age glaciers compared with Cæsar's Commentaries-- curious similarities, 252

Icebergs, how to make them in the schoolroom, 32; how the icebergs of the Ice Age gave the boulders a ride, 153

Ice wells, huge ice water tanks that the Ice Age glaciers left, 49

Indian Ocean, why its waves rise to salute the Himalayas, 140

Islands, oceanic, the tops of volcanoes, 133; islands on the Maine coast and how they were made, 212; how the sea helps the corals build their islands, 225

"Joints," places where rocks don't join, how made, 33; how they help make "perched rocks," 60; joints in the "Marble Rocks" at Jabalpur, 105; joints and the work of the sea's rock mills, 216; use of joints in Nature's stone architecture, 228

Jordan River, why it was born partly grown, 73: why the making of the Jordan Valley was the death of the Dead Sea, 206

Jungfrau, summer pastures on, 41; its beauty, 44

Jupiter, how as rain god he put out the world, 3; place of the planet in the Solar system, 6

Keewatin, one of the central stations of the Ice Age, 28

Kentucky, the sink holes in the cave regions, 200

Kepler and the discovery that there are worlds of worlds, 4

Kettle lakes, how the glaciers of the Ice Age made them, 196

Labrador, one of the central stations of the Ice Age, 28; how the butterflies of Labrador tell that their ancestors missed the train, 49

Lakes, the Ice Age lake and the "Temple of the Winds," 33; how the Ice Age glaciers made the Great Lakes, 34; how they helped Lake Erie in making Niagara Falls, 36; the sleep of lakes and how it brightens them up, 80; how Mirror Lake shows Mount Rainier how beautiful he is, 130; how, with Jack Frost's help, lakes build boulder walls, 134; the empty lake beds of the desert, 162; "trade-marks" on lake-shore sand, 173; how lakes are born, 192; moods of lakes, 198; why the ducks overlook some lakes, 198; where mountain lakes get their coloring, 199; sympathetic action of sister lakes, 200; how some lakes act as barometers, 201; tides in lakes, 201; why lake storms are particularly dangerous, 202; peculiarity of storms on the Sea of Galilee, 202; and of storms on mountain lakes, 203; how lakes grow old and pass away, 204; why lilies come to dying lakes, 204; the procession of the trees to the margins of dying lakes, 204; why they have a regular marching order, 204; the Dead Sea and how it died, 205; what science says of the legend of Sodom and Gomorrah, 209; "Lot's Wife" as she looks to-day, 210; records of ancient weather on the walls of Great Salt Lake, 249; how the Great Lakes were tipped up and how they tell about it, 253

Lake Agassiz, a great lake of yesterday which could swallow all the Great Lakes of to-day, 193

Lake Baikal, its great depth, 193

Lake Erie, how the glaciers helped it make Niagara Falls, 36

Lake Superior (size), 193

Laplace, his great theory of the origin of worlds, 4

Lapland, strange stories its butterflies tell, 48

Laurentian Highlands, how they rose out of the sea, 9

Lava, how it makes dikes and what a New York City dike has to say about the origin of marble, 97, 241; how lava plays "grandfather" in the Porphyry family, 102; lava and the flame effects on volcanic clouds, 126; lava plains, 126; how lava helps raise the fine fruit and wheat of Washington and Oregon, 128; how it increases the violence of delayed volcanic explosions, 130; the lava and the "fire from heaven" in the story of Lot, 209; the iron wall near Spanish Peaks, 235; remarkable architecture of the Giant's Causeway, 243; theory as to what makes the lava climb, 244

Libyan desert, Greek myth as to its origin, 2

Limestone, how it turns to marble, 97, 104; how the shelled creatures of the sea help make it, 101; the "Marble Rocks" at Jabalpur, 105; the place of limestone in the rock-making system of the sea, 227; limestone and the story marble tells of mountain making, 237, 239

Little Round Top (Mt.), the battles that rounded it, 248

Lizards, varieties in the Arizona desert, 181

London, how it owes its greatness to the transgressions of the sea, 224

Los Angeles River, how one of its tributaries plays hide-and-seek, 80

Lowell, Mass., how the Old Men of the Mountain helped build it, 34

McCloud River, why it is born half grown, 73

Maine, advance of the sea upon its coasts, 219

Mammoth, art note on, from the "Cavemen's Diary," 22; ancient members of the elephant family that wore underclothes, 24

Manchester, Mass., how the Old Men of the Mountain built its falls, 34

Marble, how a New York City dike helps tell how marble is made, 97; what the fossils have to say, 100; how it is quarried, 103; the mysteries in marble walls, 235; when marble flows, 238; the cloud effects in marble, 239; how marble tells of earthquakes and other exciting things, 239

Mars (planet), 6

Meanders, engineering work of wandering rivers, 81; meanders and the making of natural bridges, 83

Mediterranean Sea, its connection with the making of the Alps, 136

Mercury (planet), 6

Metamorphism (defined), 98

Miller, Hugh, how he found a fish inside of a stone and so found Hugh Miller, 159

Mississippi River, how the Old Men of the Mountain pushed it about, 30; how you can jump across it, 69; the mountains of soil it carries into the sea, 84

Mississippi River System (map), 67

Mississippi Valley, when it was at the bottom of a mediterranean sea, 10; why the sea went away, 138

Missouri River, how it was pieced together and pushed about in the Ice Age, 29

Mohawk River, why it grew taller as it grew older, 72

Molecules, their relations to atoms and electrons, 109

Moraines, how the glaciers take them on their backs, 56

Moulins, the "mills" of the glaciers and how they are made, 55

Mountains, earliest arrivals in the mountain world, 9; origin of bald mountains, 26; Muir on the marvellous mountain sculpture of the snowflakes, 37; how mountain peaks are kept sharp, 43; rain-drops as mountain sculptors, 67; mountains and the origin of river valleys, 69; and the birth of partly grown rivers, 72; mountain streams and their waterfalls, 77; storm chorus of the mountain torrents, 78; how mountain lakes and baby rivers go to sleep together and the liveliness of the rivers afterward, 80; how mountains help make the water gates, 86; why growing mountains make earthquakes, 86; why almost all granite is found in mountain regions, 97; the different kinds of mountains, 115; why mountains border the sea, 134; why they run north and south, 137; why sea waves rise to greet the mountains, 139; Ruskin on mountain drawing, 140; resemblance of mountains to sea waves, 140; how mountains helped solve the mystery of the stones of the field, 151; sunrise in the Atlas Mountains, 163; why desert mountains look so gaunt and hungry, 164; why the desert winds are constantly blowing them away, 171; mountain shapes and the law of the picturesque in Nature's art work, 229; how the mountain chains are the making of Europe, 230; their ups and downs, 230; why the markings in marble tell the story of mountain building, 237; and of mountain shaking, 239; ancient weather records on mountain walls, 248

Mountain lakes, the blue lake in the volcano's mouth, 195; why mountain lake storms are particularly dangerous, 202; and why they are apt to come at night, 202

Mountain meadows, how rapidly their flowers follow the snow, 44

Mount Fujiyama, its striking resemblance to a mountain 3,000 miles away, 124

Mount Hermon, its spring that gives birth to the Jordan, 73

Mount McKinley, remarkable snap-shot of one of its avalanches, 63

Mount Pelée, its discharge of huge rocks and whirling bombs, 129; the mysterious shaft that rose and fell, 132

Mount Ritter, its resemblance to the sacred mountain of Japan, 124

Mount Shasta, how it gives birth to a river that has no babyhood, 73; how the mountain itself was born at the crossroads and why this is apt to happen in the case of volcanic mountains, 127

Mount Vesuvius, why, like other active volcanoes, it seems to smoke but doesn't, 126, 127

Mount Washington, its interesting colony of descendants of butterfly pilgrims of the Ice Age who missed the train, 48

Muir, John, on the wonderful team work of the snowflakes, in the Ice Age, 37; on the liveliness of mountain streams after a little nap in mountain lakes, 80; on the winter sleep of the mountain lakes and their glad awakening in the spring, 198

Natural bridges, various ways in which they are made by the very streams they bridge, 83, 85

Nebular Hypothesis, one of the theories as to how the world was made, 4; how it differs from the latest theory, 6; the Bible story compared with both theories, 17

Neptune (planet), 6

New England, how the Old Men of the Mountain plowed its farms away, 31; and then made up for it by putting in New England's waterfalls, 32

Newton, his connection with the theory of the origin of worlds, 4

New York City, what one of its big rocks tells about marble making, 97; what its harbor owes to the engineering of the sea, 221, 222; the perched boulder in Bronx Park and its autograph, 250

Niagara Falls, its thousand-year clock and what it tells about the Ice Age, 35; how the Old Men of the Mountain set the falls up in business, 36

Nitrogen, how it helped to make fresh air for the new-born world, 16

Norway, interpretation of the handwriting on the walls of its fiords, 254

Ogden Canyon, curious example of a rock fold, 238

Ohio River, how the Old Men of the Mountain helped it by turning some rivers around, 31

Omar Khayyam, answer of Science to the universal riddle that puzzled him, 261

Origin of Species. (See Evolution.)

Oxygen, its use in making the world's air, 16; how the sea feeds oxygen to the corals, 225

Pack Rat, his remarkable fortress in the desert, 187

Paleontologists, the wizards of queer anatomies and the strange forms they conjure up from the fragments of old bones, 266

Palestine. (See Dead Sea.)

Palisades, how they were made in the "Middle Ages," 241

Pebbles, how they tell of old sea beaches on inland mountain and hill, 14; their enormous age, 18; dramatic stories the pebble scratches tell, 26; how the Old Men of the Mountain used pebbles in turning New England rivers around, 31; how pebbles helped deepen the basins of the Great Lakes, 34; how they still help run the thousand-year clock at Niagara Falls, 35; how they help the glaciers talk, 56; why the pebbles of Glacier Land can't walk as the big stones do, 62; how the river pebbles act as bankers for the farmers and the sea, 80; how the pebbles helped dig the Grand Canyon, 82; how they tell about doings in the Fairyland of Change, 97; how a pebble may, in its time, play many parts, 99; how they help unravel the secrets of the hills, 119; how they help dying rivers multiply by two, 167; how they report the fact that the storms on the Sea of Galilee are particularly severe, 203; their fixed place in the rock-making system of the sea, 227; how they tell of rough experiences in river travel, 250; and of high winds at sea, desert sandstorms, rides on glaciers, and in what compartments they travel, 251

Peninsulas, how the drowning of rivers helps to make them, 212

Pennsylvania, autographs left by ancient reptiles in the sandstone under the coal seams, 245

Perched boulder, in Bronx Park and its autograph on its rock-bed, 250

Quartz, how it helps to make the pebble jewel-boxes--the geodes, 101

Quartzite, (defined), 98

Rain, what fossil rain-drops tell of ancient weather, 224

Rat, desert, 186

Reclus, on the motion of glaciers, 62; on the mountain whirlpools of stones, 141; on the severity of lake storms, 202

Reefs, coral, how the sea helps the little people build them, 225

Reptiles, with bird feet, 246

Rivers, how the Mississippi River and others were pushed about in the Ice Age, 26; how the Old Men of the Mountain helped the Ohio by turning some rivers around, 31; how they helped make New England a great manufacturing section by turning some other rivers around, 32; how they helped build the "Temple of the Winds," 33; the little boy's definition of a river system, 66; how the sea and the rivers take turn about in emptying into each other, 66; their wonderful work in the mountains, 67; the Mississippi River system, 67; how they study the work of rivers on rainy days in Boston, 68; how you can jump across the Mississippi, 69; what springs do for rivers, 69; how the springs act as regulators of river flow, 72; how rivers grow at the top, 72; why some rivers are born partly grown, 72; how most of Europe's rivers get their start, 73; why many little rivers have to jump to catch the train, 74; why all rivers flow toward the sea, 75; beautiful way in which Ruskin tells of the response of rivers to the call of the sea, 76; the human nature in rivers, 76; baby ways of baby rivers, 76; why waterfalls are found only in young streams and more often as you near the source, 76; how rivers play in the rain, 78; storm chorus of the mountain torrents, 78; where to look for hiding rivers, 78; how rivers sleep in mountain lakes and how lively they are when they wake up, 80; why rivers grow more thrifty as they grow older; how, with the help of the pebbles, they act as bankers for the farmers and the sea, 80; the machinery of rivers includes circular saws and dirt-spreaders, 82; how a river dug the Grand Canyon, 82, 88; the automatic stop in the river machinery, 83; enormous amount of soil carried by the Mississippi into the sea, 84; how rivers cut mountains in two, 85; how rivers help in mining granite, 97; how they help make hills, 117; how they combine with the boulders to help out the artists, 157; the land in which there are river beds without rivers and rivers without mouths, 162; the skeletons of dead rivers and what they tell of the past history of the desert, 166; why dying rivers multiply by two, 167; harbor engineering of the rivers and the sea, 221; how rivers made the Golden Gate of San Francisco and so made San Francisco, 223; the rivers and the rock mills of the sea, 227; the river's trade-mark on its pebbles, 250

Rocky Mountains, how they were born, 10; their relation to the Mediterranean Sea that is no more, 135; why they are now so far from the sea, 138; how the mountain waves of stone resemble the waves of the sea, 140; folded strata that illustrate Ruskin's line about the strange quivering recorded in mountain rocks, 142

Romans, some of the big things we owe to them, 270

Rose of Jericho, what it is like and how it puts to sea, 176

Round Tops (Mt.), how they are formed, 123

Ruskin, on the response of rivers to the call of the sea, 76; on the sleep of lakes, 80; on mountain drawing, 140; on the strange "quivering of substance" of mountains, 141; on the art lessons to be learned from stones, 158; on the correct drawing of boulders, 160

Sahara Desert. (See Desert.)

St. Lawrence River, how the Old Men of the Mountain took some of its rivers away, 30; how the Old Men used it in making the Great Lakes, 34

Salt, how Mother Nature uses it in warming over rocks, 99; how Father Neptune uses it in his rock mills, 217

Sand, how it helped build the stone "Temple of the Winds," 33; how Mother Nature dissolves it out of sandstone in her rock cookery, 99; how the crystal fairies give sand grains a new lease of life, 108; how the sand helped shape the old Indian of Mt. Abu, 147; color of desert sand, 165; how the desert makes its sand, 168; "sand roses," 168

Sandstone, its place in the rock-milling system of the sea, 227

San Francisco Bay, how it was made, the two rivers that opened its Golden Gate, 222

Saturn (planet), 5, 6

Sea, when the seas were all in the sky, 16; how its stratification of rock helped build the "Temple of the Winds," 33; the Alps, like sea waves turned to stone, 50; how the sea flows into the rivers, the endless circuit of the waters, 66; why the rivers always get back to sea, 75; how the pebbles help feed the sea fish and furnish material for the sea's rock mills, 81; the Grand Canyon and the ancient sea, 88; how the sea helps Mother Nature do the work in her rock cookery, 99; why volcanoes and mountains border the sea, 133, 134; why sea waves rise to greet the mountains, 139; how sea sand grains differ from those of the desert, 173; the rock mills of the sea, method in the madness of the on-shore waves, 212; why the sea's chief business at first seems to be that of eating us up, 213; the sea in literature and art, 213; England's heavy losses to the sea, 214; how helpless the Old Man of the Sea is without his tools, 215; how he uses the stone-throwing engines and the battering-ram of the Romans, 216; what he knows about wedges and pneumatic tools, 216; the hidden enemies in the rocks of the sea, 216; planing-mills of the winter seas, 217; how stones are carried out to sea, 218; how the sea has shaped Europe, 219; the sea as a builder, why Father Neptune is like Old King Cole, 220; harbor engineering of the rivers and the sea, 221, 222; how the sea helped teach shore engineering to man, 223; how it has helped make London, New York, and other great cities, 223, 224; how Father Neptune feeds the coral people, 225; the art work of the sea, 227, 228; Nature's building blocks and the sea, 228; the ups and downs of Europe's mountains under the sea, 230; how sea tides help in recording rain-drop marks in stone, 244

Sea caves, what they told about how the continents came up out of the sea, 14

Sea of Galilee, why its storms come so suddenly and usually at night, 202, 203; how the pebbles on its shores tell that these storms are severe, 203; why it parted company with the Dead Sea, 206

Sea-shells, how some of them tell how marble is made, 100

Seismograph, the device for getting the autograph of earthquakes, 240

Shakespere, how he emphasizes the rough side of Father Neptune's nature, 213; on the man and the swallowing waves, 219; his reference to the greatness of Mr. Cæsar, 252

Shaler, Dr., on the stone autographs of rain-drops, how they throw light on the climate of ancient days, 246

Shasta River, why it is born partly grown, 73

Sierra Nevada Mountains, Muir on how the snowflakes helped carve them, 37

Silica, its use by Mother Nature in making sandstone, grass, wheat, and corn, 99

Slate, and the Fairyland of Change, 98; its place in the rock mills of the sea, 227; ancient autographs found in slate, 245

Sodom and Gomorrah, the Bible story of their destruction and what Science has to say about it, 208

Soil, how it was made in the beginning of things, 11; how the Old Men of the Mountain carried New England's best farms away, 31; how river pebbles act as bankers for the farmers, 80; how the sea helps make good farming land, 222; Nature's art work and the making of soil, 229

Solar system, how it was discovered that there are worlds of worlds, 4; Laplace's theory as to the origin of the Solar system, 4; the planetessimal theory, 6

Soldanella, the flower of the Alps that blooms its way up through the ice, 45

Special Creation theory, 265

Spiders, the tarantula and the tarantula killer, 181; the spiders of the Arizona desert, 182; how the trap-door spider slams the door in the centipede's face, 182

Spontaneous variation, the scientific modification of the old "Special Creation" theory, 274

Springs, not only start rivers in life but go on feeding them, 69; how rain-drops stored in big stone safes keep the springs going, 69; springs that work like a town pump, 70; hot springs and the geysers, 165

Stratification, defined; how it helped make the "Temple of the Winds," 33; how it helps in marble quarrying, 103; as shown in the "Marble Rocks" at Jabalpur, 105; how it helps in the making over of rock in the sea's mills, 217

Stratus clouds, their counterparts in marble and what these marble cloud pictures mean, 239

Striæ, scratches made in rocks by glaciers, and how they helped to disclose the great secret that there was an Ice Age, 121; the big boulder's autograph in Bronx Park, New York City, 250

Tarantula, and the life struggle in the desert, 181

Terraces, what they tell about the tipping up of the Great Lakes once upon a time, 253

Tides, in lakes and in teacups, 201; and the harbor and shore engineering of the sea, 221, 225; how they help preserve the autographs of ancient rain-drops, ancient reptiles, and other things, 244

"Transgressions" of the sea, defined, 218; how they help to make great cities, 223; how they help in the art work of the sea, 227

"Umbrella Parties," an interesting form of geography study in Boston, 68

Uranus (planet), 6

Valleys, how crooked rivers broaden them, 82

Venus (planet), 6

Vesuvius, why it seems to smoke but doesn't, 126, 127

Volcanoes, what they tell about the inside of the earth, 3; why volcanoes were more numerous in early days, 16; difference between ordinary mountains and volcanic mountains, 114, 123; the volcanic mountains in the Sahara and the "Baths of the Damned," 165; the blue lake in the volcano's mouth, 194; volcanoes and "the fire from heaven" in the Bible story of Lot, 209; how volcanic explosions help to cause transgressions of the sea, 219; Mr. Vulcan's famous castle on the Hudson, 241

Vulture, his wonderful abilities as a flying machine, 182

Wasp, desert, how it disposes of the tarantula, 181

Waterfalls, how the Old Men of the Mountain put them in for New England, to make up for carrying her farms away, 31; how they set Niagara Falls up in business and started the thousand-year time clock, 35, 36; why the Bridal Veil Falls in the Yosemite has to jump to catch the train, 74; why waterfalls are found only in young streams and oftenest near the source, 76

Water Gaps, how the rivers cut them with the help of pebbles, 85

Weathering, examples of, 33, 60, 97, 147, 228, 229, 231, 241, 243, 248

Wind, how it helped carve the "Temple of the Winds," 33; how it helps make pillars for perched rocks, 60; how it helped carve the strange old Indian of Mt. Abu, 147; how it helps the desert in trade-marking its sand, 173; the wind witches of the Steppes, 178; why lake wind storms are particularly dangerous, 202; the winds and the night storms on the Sea of Galilee, 202; how winds help fill up the sea, 219; stone autographs of ancient breezes, 247; pebble faceted by wind-blown sand, 252; wind ripples, 248

Wren, desert, how she locks her front door against her bad neighbors, 177

Wyoming, the ancient bones found in its soil and the wonderful story they told about horses, 266

Xenophanes, the wise old Greek who first suggested that the mountains had risen out of the sea, 13

Yosemite Valley, why the rivers of the little valleys have to jump to catch the train, 74

* * * * *

Transcriber Note

Minor typos corrected. Paragraph break inserted at the top of page 116 to accommodate placement of image related to the text therein. In the original book, Mt. Fujiyama and Mount Rainier were on page 124 and 125 respectively with the caption spanning the two pages. The words "top" and "bottom" were substituted for "left" and "right" respectively for their orientation here. Also, the caption has been updated to say "FOUR THOUSAND".