creatures of whose existence we had previously no knowledge. We had
not even a suspicion that what to our unaided vision appeared inert
elements held a rampant, multitudinous life, nowhere dead, but always
surging and changing, ever replacing death and decay with a new life
all its own. Nature's luxuriance everywhere fills us with wonder and
delight. The fragrant ferny depths of the forest, and the lush growth
of the rank marsh-land, the immeasurable sands of the ocean-edge hiding
in their mysterious sameness innumerable and beautiful shells and
corals, and the mountain top heaped up with boulders, or crumbling by
nature's processes into pebbly imponderance.

Life, swarming everywhere. Tiny leaflets giving succor and shelter to
tinier animal life--its special fairy. Huge beasts couchant in
majestic trees, guarding against invasions, with a fierce, jealous rage
inherited from the gnomes and satyrs.

Deep sea depths untouched by lightnings, where the kraken makes his
home; jolly dolphins disporting in the sunlight, responding to the cry
of the hovering wild duck and gull. Human beings overcrowding in the
oldest settled portions of the globe, until nature's resources for
their sustenance are wellnigh exhausted.

All these, and many more, might justly be enumerated to illustrate the
bountiful and inexhaustible resources of the great creative,
reconstructive Power in the universe of matter.

Life, everywhere life, forcing out death and decay. Ever changing its
form of expression. Reforming itself upon steadily advancing models.
All nature swinging in circles so wide and vast as to require centuries
for their completion.