Part 37 (2/2)

A great o, when nearly the whole of Canada was covered ater, and the Northern Ocean, which washed the highest crests of the Alleghanies, made an island of the Laurentian Hills, and wrote its name on the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior, there lived somewhere near Toronto, in the Province of Ontario, a little animal called a Polyp He was a curious creature, very small, not unlike a flower in appearance, a plant-animal

One day, the sun shone down into the water and set this little fellow free fro in which he was confined For a time he floated about near the bottom of the ocean, but at last settled down on a bit of shell, and fastened hi in his upper side, formed for himself a an catching whatever e ways, but the strangest of all was his gathering little bits of li them up round him, as a person does who builds a well

But this little Favosite, for that was his name, becaht, when he was fast asleep and drea as only a coral animal can dream, there sprouted out of his side another little Favosite, who very soon began to wall himself up as his parent had done From these, other little Favosites were formed, till at last there were so ether, that, to economize the limestone they built with, they had to make their cells six-sided, like those of a honey-comb: on this account they are called Favosites

[Illustration]

The colony thrived for a long time, and accue careat rush ofonly a stony skeleton to prove that industrious Polyps had ever existed there

This skeleton rean to rise inch by inch out of the water Then our Favosites' home rose above the deep, and with it came all that was left of its old acquaintances the Trilobites, ere the ancestors of our crabs and lobsters

[Illustration: Trilobite]

Then the first fishes ar pike of our lakes, but larger, and armed with scales as hard as the are and voracious as they now are, with teeth like knives But the time of these old fishes and of many more animals caround

Then ca over the earth, and great ferns and rushes, as stout as an oak and as tall as a steeple, grew in Nova Scotia, in Pennsylvania, and in other parts of Ae reptiles, with enormous jaws and teeth like cross-cut saws, and ss like bats, next appeared and added to the strangeness of the scene

But the reptiles died; the ferns and the rush-trees fell into their native swareat layers of clay and sand brought down by the rivers, till at last they were turned into coal, for for us, what someone has called, beds of petrified sunshi+ne But all this while the skeleton of the Favosites lay undisturbed

Then the radually as they had coe four-footed ani little horses no bigger than foxes; great hairy s with snouts nearly as long as their bodies; and other strange creatures that no man has ever seen alive But still the house of the Favosites rereat winter, and it continued to snow till the mountains were hidden Then the snoas packed into ice, and Canada becae continued for an toup rocks, little and big, and crushi+ng and grinding and carrying away everything in its course It ploughed its way across Ontario, and the skeleton of our Favosites was rooted out froht up in a crevice of the ice The glacier slid along,the land with clay, pebbles, and boulders At last it stopped, and as it gradually melted away, all the rocks and stones and dirt it had carried with it thus far, were deposited into one great heap, and the hoes afterwards a far a field, picked up a curious bit of ”petrified honey-coist to hear what he would say about it And now you have read what he said

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THE SNOW-STORM

The sun that brief Deceray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon

A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, A hard, dull bitterness of cold, That checked,race Of life-blood in the sharpened face, The co of the snow-storm told

The wind blew east: we heard the roar Of Ocean on his wintry shore, And felt the strong pulse throbbing there Beat with low rhythhtly chores,-- Brought in the wood from out of doors, Littered the stalls, and frorass for the cows: Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; And, sharply clashi+ng horn on horn, Impatient down the stanchion rows The cattle shake their walnut bows; While, peering from his early perch Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, The cock his crested hele sent

Unwarht, A nightstor to and fro Crossed and recrossed the winged snow: And ere the early bed-tih the glass the clothes-line posts Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts

So all night long the stor broke without a sun; And, when the secondwe could call our own

Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament, No cloud above, no earth below,-- A universe of sky and snow!

The old fae doarden wall, or belt of wood; A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, A fenceless drift what once was road; The bridle-post an old h cocked hat; The well-curb had a Chinese roof; And even the long sweep, high aloof, In its slant splendour, see miracle