illustrated with engravings, in the shape of fossils, of all forms of
life, from the primordial cell up to the bones of man and his
implements.

But it is not with the pages of this sublime volume

{p. 2}

we have to deal in this book. It is with a vastly different but
equally wonderful formation.

Upon the top of the last of this series of stratified rocks we find
THE DRIFT.

What is it?

Go out with me where yonder men are digging a well. Let us observe
the material they are casting out.

First they penetrate through a few inches or a foot or two of surface
soil; then they enter a vast deposit of sand, gravel, and clay. It
may be fifty, one hundred, five hundred, eight hundred feet, before
they reach the stratified rocks on which this drift rests. It covers
whole continents. It is our earth. It makes the basis of our soils;
our railroads cut their way through it; our carriages drive over it;
our cities are built upon it; our crops are derived from it; the
water we drink percolates through it; on it we live, love, marry,
raise children, think, dream, and die; and in the bosom of it we will
be buried.