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Gallegacia Online Directory 08
Page 04
Now, we have seen that the question of the antiquity of man is intimately connected with that of the Glacial Age. That is to say, the relics of man as far as we know them in Europe, are found under such circumstances that we feel confident they are not far removed from the period of cold. For it will be found that those conservative scholars who do not think that man preceded the Glacial Age, or inhabited Europe during the long course of years included in that period, do think he came into Europe as soon as it passed away. So, in any case, if we can determine the date of the Glacial Age, we shall have made a most important step in advance in solving the problem of the antiquity of man himself. So it seems to us best to go over the subject of the Glacial Age again, and see what conclusions some of our best thinkers have come to as to its cause, when it occurred, and other matters in relation to it.
Children clapped their hands and ran to meet him; girls greeted him with offerings of flowers; and when he had dismounted, both old and young gathered about him, lisping him a welcome and shaking him by the hand. There was nobody like Dominie Payson, and the love these people bore him, and now gave him so many expressions of, was true and heartfelt. And when he had kissed the children, and exchanged greetings and kind words with their parents, he proceeded into the church, followed by his flock. His sermon was, perhaps, one of the oddest ever listened to, for after returning thanks for the bountiful harvest, and extending on the goodness of God, and advising his flock to stick firmly to their farms and their religion, that being the only true way of getting to Heaven, he turned his guns against Mr. and Mrs. Chapman, though he never once mentioned their names. He urged his flock to keep in mind always how much better off they were, how much more happy they were than those men who came to town with the devil and a number of strange religions in their heads. Such people, he added, always had the devil for a friend; and it was the devil who assisted them to get poor people's money. And with this money they dressed their wives in silks and satins, built big houses, and lived like people who were very proud and never paid their debts, nor did a day's work on the roads. It was all well enough for these men to talk of Heaven and put on pious faces, but Heaven would take no notice of them while they gave themselves up to the temptations of the devil and built steamboats and founded railroads, to kill honest people with, and ruin the country.
The fresh-water mussels and snails and the crayfish burrow deep into the mud and silt at the bottom of ponds and streams where they lie motionless during the winter. The land snails, in late autumn, crawl beneath logs, and, burrowing deep into the soft mould, they withdraw far into their shells. Then each one forms with a mucous secretion two thin transparent membranes, one across the opening of the shell and one a little farther within, thus making the interior of the shell perfectly air-tight. There for five or six months he sleeps, free from the pangs of hunger and the blasts of winter, and when the balmy breezes of spring blow up from the south he breaks down and devours the protecting membrane and goes forth with his home on his back to seek fresh leaves for food and to find for himself a mate.
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