Part 2 — CHAPTER VII.

"Well, I expect I be changed, Swan," said Dorcas, sadly.

She said nothing about his change; and, besides, she had recognized him.

"They say my Dorcas favors me, and looks as I used to. Come, come up to the house; Mr. Mowers'll be glad to see you. You don't know how many times we've talked you over, and wondered if ever you'd come back! But, dear sakes! you can't think what a kind of a shock you give me, Swan! Why, I expected nothin' but what you was dead, years ago!"

Here was a pretty expression of sentiment! Swan only answered, faintly,—

"Did you?" and rubbed his eyes to wake himself up.

They walked slowly towards the house. The great red walls stood staring and peaceful, as of old, and the milkers were coming in from the farmyard with their pails foaming and smoking, as they used to do fifteen years before. In the door-way, with his pipe in his mouth, stood Henry Mowers, the monarch of all he surveyed. He had come, by marriage, to own the Fox farm of twelve hundred acres. He had woodland and pasture-land, cattle and horses, like Job,—and in his house, health, peace, and children: dark-eyed Dorcas and Jemima, white-headed Obed and Zephaniah, and the twins that now clambered over his shoulder and stood on his broad, strong palms,—two others, Philip and Henry, had died in the cradle.

Dorcas the younger stood in the doorway, and leaned gracefully towards her father. She whispered to him, as the stranger approached,—

"There's the man coming now with mother! I thought't was a crazy man!"

The mother came eagerly forward, anxious to prevent the unrecognizing glance, which she knew must be painful.

"What do you think, Henry? Swan Day has come back, just in time to spend Thanksgiving with us!"

"Swan Day? I want to know!" answered Henry, mechanically holding out his hand, and then shaking it longer and longer in the vain attempt to recall the youthful features.

"Well! if ever!" he continued, turning to his wife, with increased astonishment at the perspicacity she had shown, while Swan's eyes were fixed on the slender figure of the young Dorcas, seeming to see the river of life flowing by and far beyond him.

Keeping up a despairing shaking, Henry walked the stranger into the old square room, where the once sanded floor was now covered with a carpet, and a piano strutted in the corner where the bed used to stand. But still in the other corner stood the old "buffet," and the desk where Colonel Fox kept his yellow papers. How stern, strong, and mighty Henry looked, with his six feet height, his sinewy limbs and broad chest, and his clear, steady eyes, full of manliness! How cheery the old parlor looked, too, as the evening advanced, and Dorcas lighted the pine-knots that sparkled up the chimney and set all the eyes and cheeks in the room ablaze! That was a pleasant evening, when the three elders chatted freely of all that had come and gone in Swan's absence,—of those who had died, and those who were living, and of settlers even far beyond Western New York!

"It will be like old times to have you here to-morrow at Thanksgiving, won't it?" said Henry.

"Won't it?" echoed Dorcas.

Swan said it would, and good-night.

When he was gone, little Dorcas exclaimed,—

"What a queer little old man, mother! isn't he?"

"How, queer, Dorcas?" said her mother, curious to compare the effects on the minds of the different members of the family of their visitor's appearance.

"Oh, so odd-looking! such queer little eyes! and no hair on the top of his head! and such funny whiskers!" said Dorcas, smoothing her own abundant locks, and looking at her father and brothers, whose curls were brushed back and straight up into the air, a distance of three inches, after the fashion then called "Boston." The smallest child gave an instinctive push over his forehead at the remark, and Zephaniah added,—

"He's as round and yellow as a punkin!"

"He looked stiddy to Dorcas all the time," said 'Mima, roguishly.

"Now you shet up, you silly child!" said Dorcas, with the dignity of a twelve-month's seniority.

"Wal, he dropped this 'ere in my hand, anyhow, as he went out," said Obed, opening his hand cautiously, and showing a Spanish doubloon.

"Oh! then you must give it right back to him to-morrow, Obe!" said the honest sisters; "it's gold! and he couldn't 'a' meant you should hev it!"

"I do' know 'bout that! I'll keep it t'll he asks me for 't, I guess!" said Obed, sturdily.

"What did you think about him, Henry?" said the wife; "you wouldn't 'a' known him?"

"Never! there a'n't an inch o' Swan Day in him! They say people change once in seven years. I should be loath to feel I'd lost all my looks as he has!"

"We grow old, though," answered she, with a touch of pathos in her voice, as she remembered the words of Swan.

"Old? of course, wife!" was the hearty answer; "but then we've got somethin' to show for 't!"

He glanced at her and the children proudly, and then bidding the young ones, "Scatter, quick time!" he stretched his comfortable six-feet-two before the fire, and smiled out of an easy, happy heart.

"What's looks?" said he, philosophically. "You look jest the same to me, wife, as ever you did!"

"Do I?" said the pleased wife. "Well, I'm glad I do. I couldn't bear to seem different to you, Henry!"

Henry took his pipe from his mouth, and then looked at his wife with a steady and somewhat critical gaze.

"I don't think anything about it, wife; but if I want to think on 't,—why, I can, by jes' shettin' my eyes,—and there you are! as handsome as a picter! Little Dorcas is the very image of you, at her age; and you look exactly like her,—only older, of course.—Everything ready for Thanksgiving? We'll give Day a good dinner, anyhow!"

"Yes, all's ready," answered Dorcas, with her eyes fixed on the fire.

"I knew it! There's no fail to you, wife!—never has been!—never will be!"

Dorcas rose and went behind her husband, took his head in her two faithful hands, kissed his forehead, and went upstairs.

"Little Dorcas" was fastening her hair in countless papillotes. She smiled bashfully, as her mother entered the room, and showed her white, even teeth, between her rosy lips.

"I wonder if I ever did look so pretty as that child does!" said the mother to herself.

But she said to Dorcas only this:—

"Here's your great-aunt's pin and ring. They used to be mine, when I was young and foolish. Take care of 'em, and don't you be foolish, child!"

"I wonder what mother meant!" soliloquized the daughter, when her mother had kissed her and said good-night; "she certainly had tears in her eyes!"

In the gray dawn of the next morning, Swan Day rode out of Walton in the same stage-coach and with the same "spike-team" of gray horses which had brought him thither thirty-six hours before. When the coach reached Troy, and the bright sun broke over the picturesque scenery of the erratic Ashuelot, he drew his breath deeply, as if relieved of a burden. Presently the coach stopped, the door opened, and the coachman held out his hand in silence.

"Fare, is it?"

"Fare."

Opening his pocket-book, he saw the note which he had written to Dorcas, appointing an interview, and which he had forgotten to send to her.

As he rode on, he tore the letter into a thousand minute fragments, scattering them for a mile in the coach's path, and watching the wheels grind them down in the dust.

"'T isn't the only thing I haven't done that I meant to!" said he, with a sad smile over his sallow face.

He buttoned his coat closely to his chin, raised the collar to his ears, and shut his eyes.

The coachman peeped back at his only passenger, touched the nigh leader with the most delicate hint of a whipcord, and said confidentially to the off wheel,—

"What a sleepy old porpus that is in there!"

* * * * *

THE LAST CRUISE OF THE MONITOR.

An actor in the scenes of that wild night when the Monitor went down craves permission to relate the story of her last cruise.

Her work is now over. She lies a hundred fathoms deep under the stormy waters off Cape Hatteras. But "the little cheese-box on a raft" has made herself a name which will not soon be forgotten by the American people.

Every child knows her early story,—it is one of the thousand romances of the war,—how, as our ships lay at anchor in Hampton Roads, and the army of the Potomac covered the Peninsula, one shining March day,—

"Far away to the South uprose A little feather of snow-white smoke; And we knew that the iron ship of our foes Was steadily steering its course To try the force Of our ribs of oak."

Iron conquered oak; the balls from the Congress and Cumberland rattled from the sides of the Rebel ship like hail; she passed on resistless, and

"Down went the Cumberland, all a wrack."

The Congress struck her flag, and the band of men on the Peninsula waited their turn,—for the iron monster belched out fire and shell to both sea and land. Evening cut short her work, and she returned to Norfolk, leaving terror and confusion behind her.

The morning saw her return; but now between her expected prey, the Minnesota, and herself, lay a low, black raft, to the lookers-on from the Merrimack no more formidable than the masts of the sunken Cumberland, or the useless guns of the Congress, near whose shattered hulks the Monitor kept guard, the avenger of their loss.

As the haughty monster approached the scene of her triumph, the shock of an unexampled cannonade checked her career. That little black turret poured out a fire so tremendous, so continuous, that the jubilant crew of the Merrimack faltered, surprised, terrified. The revolving tower was a marvel to them. One on board of her at the time has since told me, that, though at first entirely confident of victory, consternation finally took hold of all.

"D—n it!" said one, "the thing is full of guns."

An hour the contest raged, and then the iron scales of the invincible began to crumble under repeated blows thundered from that strange revolving terror. A slaughtering, destroying shot smashing through the port, a great seam battered in the side, crippled and defeated, the Merrimack turned prow and steamed away.

This was the end of her career, as really as when, a few weeks later, early morning saw her wrapped in sudden flame and smoke, and the people of Norfolk heard in their beds the report which was her death-knell.

So fear ended for a time, and the Monitor saw little service, until at Fort Darling she dismounted every gun, save one, when all her comrades failed to reach the mark. Then, a little worn by hard fighting, she went to Washington for some slight repairs, but specially to have better arrangements made for ventilation, as those on board suffered from the confined air during action.

The first of September a fresh alarm came, when she went down to Hampton Roads to meet the new Merrimack, said to be coming out, and stationed herself at the mouth of the James River, between the buried Congress and Cumberland, whose masts still rose above water, a monument of Rebel outrage and Union heroism. Here she remained expectant for more than two months, all on board desiring action, but thinking the new year must come in before anything could be done.

The last week in December found her lying under the guns of Fortress Monroe, and busily fitting for sea. Her own guns had been put in perfect working order, and shone like silver, one bearing the name of Worden, the other that of Ericsson. Her engineer, Mr. Campbell, was in the act of giving some final touches to the machinery, when his leg was caught between the piston-rod and frame of one of the oscillating engines, with such force as to bend the rod, which was an inch and a quarter in diameter and about eight inches long, and break its cast-iron frame, five-eighths of an inch in thickness. The most remarkable fact in this case is, that the limb, though jammed and bruised, remained unbroken,—our men in this iron craft seeming themselves to be iron.

The surgeon who examined the limb, astonished at the narrow escape, thought at first that it might, by energetic treatment, be cured in a few days; and as the engineer, who had been with the vessel from her launching, was extremely anxious to remain on board, he was disposed at first to yield to his wishes, but afterwards, reflecting that confined air and sea-sickness would have a bad effect, concluded to transfer him to the hospital, the engineer remarking, as he was carried off,—"Well, this may be Providential."

It was Providential indeed!

His place was filled, and the preparations went on briskly. The turret and sight-holes were calked, and every possible, entrance for water made secure, only the smallest openings being left in the turret-top, and the blower-stacks, through which the ship was ventilated. On the afternoon of December 29, 1862, she put on steam, and, in tow of the Rhode Island, passed the fort, and out to sea under sealed orders.

General joy was expressed at this relief from long inaction. The sick came upon deck, and in the clear sky, fresh air, and sense of motion, seemed to gain new life.

The Rhode Island, like all side-wheel steamers, left in her wake a rolling, foaming track of waves, which the Monitor, as she passed over it, seemed to smooth out like an immense flat-iron. In the course of the afternoon, we saw the Passaic in tow of the State of Georgia, like a white speck, far in advance of us.

As we gradually passed out to sea, the wind freshened somewhat; but the sun went down in glorious clouds of purple and crimson, and the night was fair and calm above us, though in the interior of our little vessel the air had already begun to lose its freshness. We suffered more or less from its closeness through the night, and woke in the morning to find it heavy with impurity from the breaths of some sixty persons, composing the officers and crew. Sunrise found us on deck, enjoying pure air, and watching the East.

"Where yonder dancing billows dip, Far off to Ocean's misty verge, Ploughs Morning, like a full-sailed ship, The Orient's cloudy surge. With spray of scarlet fire, before The ruffled gold that round her dies, She sails above the sleeping shore, Across the waking skies."

During the night we had passed Cape Henry, and now, at dawn, found ourselves on the ocean,—the land only a blue line in the distance. A few more hours, and that had vanished. No sails were visible, and the Passaic, which we had noticed the evening before, was now out of sight. The morning and afternoon passed quietly; we spent most of our time on deck, on account of the confined air below, and, being on a level with the sea, with the spray dashing over us occasionally, amused ourselves with noting its shifting hues and forms, from the deep green of the first long roll to the foam-crest and prismatic tints of the falling wave.

As the afternoon advanced, the freshening wind, the thickening clouds, and the increasing roll of the sea gave those most accustomed to ordinary ship-life some new experiences. The little vessel plunged through the rising waves, instead of riding them, and, as they increased in violence, lay, as it were, under their crests, which washed over her continually, so that, even when we considered ourselves safe, the appearance was that of a vessel sinking.

"I'd rather go to sea in a diving-bell!" said one, as the waves dashed over the pilot-house, and the little craft seemed buried in water.

"Give me an oyster-scow!" cried another,—"anything!—only let it be wood, and something that will float over, instead of under the water!"

Still she plunged on, and about six thirty P.M. we made Cape Hatteras; in half an hour we had rounded the point, and many on board expressed regret that the Monitor should not have been before the Passaic in doing so. Our spy-glasses were in constant use; we saw several vessels in the distance, and about seven P.M. discovered the Passaic four or five miles astern to the north of us, in tow of the steamer State of Georgia.

A general hurrah went up,—"Hurrah for the first iron-clad that ever rounded Cape Hatteras! Hurrah for the little boat that is first in everything!" The distance between ourselves and the Passaic widened, and we gradually lost sight of her.

At half-past seven a heavy shower fell, lasting about twenty minutes. At this time the gale increased; black, heavy clouds covered the sky, through which the moon glimmered fitfully, allowing us to see in the distance a long line of white, plunging foam, rushing towards us,—sure indication, to a sailor's eye, of a stormy time.

A gloom overhung everything; the banks of cloud seemed to settle around us; the moan of the ocean grew louder and more fearful. Still our little boat pushed doggedly on: victorious through all, we thought that here, too, she would conquer, though the beating waves sent shudders through her whole frame. Bearing still the marks of one of the fiercest battles of the war, we had grown to think her invulnerable to any assault of man or element, and as she breasted these huge waves, plunging through one only to meet another more mighty, we thought,—"She is stanch! she will weather it!"

An hour passed; the air below, which had all day been increasing in closeness, was now almost stifling, but our men lost no courage. Some sang as they worked, and the cadence of the voices, mingling with the roar of waters, sounded like a defiance to Ocean.

Some stationed themselves on top of the turret, and a general enthusiasm filled all breasts, as huge waves, twenty feet high, rose up on all sides, hung suspended for a moment like jaws open to devour, and then, breaking, gnashed over in foam from side to side. Those of us new to the sea, and not appreciating our peril, hurrahed for the largest wave; but the captain and one or two others, old sailors, knowing its power, grew momentarily more and more anxious, feeling, with a dread instinctive to the sailor, that, in case of extremity, no wreck yet known to ocean could be so hopeless as this. Solid iron from keelson to turret-top, clinging to anything for safety, if the Monitor should go down, would only insure a share in her fate. No mast, no spar, no floating thing, to meet the outstretched hand in the last moment.

The sea, like the old-world giant, gathered force from each attack. Thick and fast came the blows on the iron mail of the Monitor, and still the brave little vessel held her own, until, at half-past eight, the engineer, Waters, faithful to the end, reported a leak. The pumps were instantly set in motion, and we watched their progress with an intense interest. She had seemed to us like an old-time knight in armor, battling against fearful odds, but still holding his ground. We who watched, when the blow came which made the strong man reel and the life-blood spout, felt our hearts faint within us; then again ground was gained, and the fight went on, the water lowering somewhat under the laboring pumps.

From nine to ten it kept pace with them. From ten to eleven the sea increased in violence, the waves now dashing entirely over the turret, blinding the eyes and causing quick catchings of the breath, as they swept against us. At ten the engineer had reported the leak as gaining on us; at half-past ten, with several pumps in constant motion, one of which threw out three thousand gallons a minute, the water was rising rapidly, and nearing the fires. When these were reached, the vessel's doom was sealed; for with their extinction the pumps must cease, and all hope of keeping the Monitor above water more than an hour or two expire. Our knight had received his death-blow, and lay struggling and helpless under the power of a stronger than he.

A consultation was held, and, not without a conflict of feeling, it was decided that signals of distress should be made. Ocean claimed our little vessel, and her trembling frame and failing fire proved she would soon answer his call; yet a pang went through us, as we thought of the first iron-clad lying alone at the bottom of this stormy sea, her guns silenced, herself a useless mass of metal. Each quiver of her strong frame seemed to plead with us not to abandon her. The work she had done, the work she was to do, rose before us; might there not be a possibility of saving her yet?—her time could not have come so soon. We seemed to hear a voice from her saying,—"Save me, for once I have saved you! My frame is stanch still; my guns may again silence the roar of Rebel batteries. The night will pass, and calm come to us once more. Save me!" The roar of Ocean drowned her voice, and we who descended for a moment to the cabin knew, by the rising water through which we waded, that the end was near.

Small time was there for regrets. Rockets were thrown up, and answered by the Rhode Island, whose brave men prepared at once to lower boats, though, in that wild sea, it was almost madness.

The Monitor had been attached to the Rhode Island by two hawsers, one of which had parted at about seven P.M. The other remained firm, but now it was necessary it should be cut. How was that possible, when every wave washed clean over her deck? what man could reach it alive? "Who'll cut the hawser?" shouted Captain Bankhead. Acting-Master Stodder volunteered, and was followed by another. Holding by one hand to the ropes at her side, they cut through, by many blows of the hatchet, the immense rope which united the vessels. Stodder returned in safety, but his brave companion was washed over and went down.

The men were quiet and controlled, but all felt anxiety. Master's-Mate Peter Williams suggested bailing, in the faint hope that in this way the vessel might be kept longer above water. A bailing party was organized by John Stocking, boatswain, who, brave man, at last went down. Paymaster Keeler led the way, in company with Stocking, Williams, and one or two others; and though the water was now waist-deep, and they knew the vessel was liable to go down at almost any moment, they worked on nobly, throwing out a constant stream of water from the turret.

Meanwhile the boat launched from the Rhode Island had started, manned by a crew of picked men.

A mere heroic impulse could not have accomplished this most noble deed. For hours they had watched the raging sea. Their captain and they knew the danger; every man who entered that boat did it at peril of his life; and yet all were ready. Are not such acts as these convincing proof of the divinity in human nature?

We watched her with straining eyes, for few thought she could live to reach us. She neared; we were sure of her, thank God!

In this interval the cut hawser had become entangled in the paddle-wheel of the Rhode Island, and she drifted down upon us: we, not knowing this fact, supposed her coming to our assistance; but a moment undeceived us. The launch sent for our relief was now between us and her,—too near for safety. The steamer bore swiftly down, stern first, upon our starboard quarter. "Keep off! keep off!" we cried, and then first saw she was helpless. Even as we looked, the devoted boat was caught between the steamer and the iron-clad,—a sharp sound of crushing wood was heard,—thwarts, oars, and splinters flew in air,—the boat's crew leaped to the Monitor's deck. Death stared us in the face; our iron prow must go through the Rhode Island's side, and then an end to all. One awful moment we held our breath,—then the hawser was cleared,—the steamer moved off, as it were, step by step, first one, then another, till a ship's-length lay between us, and then we breathed freely. But the boat!—had she gone to the bottom, carrying brave souls with her? No, there she lay, beating against our iron sides, but still, though bruised and broken, a life-boat to us.

There was no hasty scramble for life when it was found she floated; all held back. The men kept steadily on at their work of bailing,—only those leaving, and in the order named, whom the captain bade save themselves. They descended from the turret to the deck with mingled fear and hope, for the waves tore from side to side, and the coolest head and bravest heart could not guaranty safety. Some were washed over as they left the turret, and, with a vain clutch at the iron deck, a wild throwing-up of the arms, went down, their death-cry ringing in the ears of their companions.

The boat sometimes held her place by the Monitor's side, then was dashed hopelessly out of reach, rising and falling on the waves. A sailor would spring from the deck to reach her, be seen for a moment in mid-air, and then, as she rose, fall into her. So she gradually filled up; but some poor souls who sought to reach her failed even as they touched her receding sides, and went down.

We had on board a little messenger-boy, the special charge of one of the sailors, and the pet of all; he must inevitably have been lost, but for the care of his adopted father, who, holding him firmly in his arms, escaped as by miracle, being washed overboard, and succeeded in placing him safely in the boat.

The last but one to make the desperate venture was the surgeon; he leaped from the deck, and at the very instant saw the boat being swept away by the merciless sea. Making one final effort, he threw his body forward as he fell, striking across the boat's side so violently, it was thought some of his ribs must be broken. "Haul the Doctor in!" shouted Lieutenant Greene, perhaps remembering how, a little time back, he himself, almost gone down in the unknown sea, had been "hauled in" by a quinine rope flung him by the Doctor. Stout sailor-arms pulled him in, one more sprang to a place in her, and the boat, now full, pushed off,—in a sinking condition, it is true, but still bearing hope with her, for she was wood.

Over the waves we toiled slowly, pulling for life. The men stuffed their pea-jackets into the holes in her side, and bailed incessantly. We neared the Rhode Island; but now a new peril appeared. Right down upon our centre, borne by the might of rushing water, came the whale-boat sent to rescue others from the iron-clad. We barely floated; if she struck us with her bows full on us, we must go to the bottom. One sprang, and, as she neared, with outstretched arms, met and turned her course. She passed against us, and his hand, caught between the two, was crushed, and the arm, wrenched from its socket, fell a helpless weight at his side; but life remained. We were saved, and an arm was a small price to pay for life.

We reached the Rhode Island; ropes were flung over her side, and caught with a death-grip. Some lost their hold, were washed away, and again dragged in by the boat's crew. What chance had one whose right arm hung a dead weight, when strong men with their two hands went down before him? He caught at a rope, found it impossible to save himself alone, and then for the first time said,—"I am injured; can any one aid me?" Ensign Taylor, at the risk of his own life, brought the rope around his shoulder in such a way it could not slip, and he was drawn up in safety.

In the mean time the whale-boat, nearly our destruction, had reached the side of the Monitor, and now the captain said,—"It is madness to remain here longer; let each man save himself." For a moment he descended to the cabin for a coat, and his faithful servant followed to secure a jewel-box, containing the accumulated treasure of years. A sad, sorry sight it was. In the heavy air the lamps burned dimly, and the water, waist-deep, splashed sullenly against the wardroom's sides. One lingering look, and he left the Monitor's cabin forever.

Time was precious; he hastened to the deck, where, in the midst of a terrible sea, Lieutenant Greene nobly held his post. He seized the rope from the whale-boat, wound it about an iron stanchion, and then around his wrists, for days afterward swollen and useless from the strain. His black body-servant stood near him.

"Can you swim, William?" he asked.

"No," replied the man.

"Then keep by me, and I'll save you."

One by one, watching their time between the waves, the men filled in, the captain helping the poor black to a place, and at last, after all effort for others and none for themselves, Captain Bankhead and Lieutenant Greene took their places in the boat. Two or three still remained, clinging to the turret; the captain had begged them to come down, but, paralyzed with fear, they sat immovable, and the gallant Brown, promising to return for them, pushed off, and soon had his boat-load safe upon the Rhode Island's deck.

Here the heartiest and most tender reception met us. Our drenched clothing was replaced by warm and dry garments, and all on board vied with each other in acts of kindness. The only one who had received any injury, Surgeon Weeks, was carefully attended to, the dislocated arm set, and the crushed fingers amputated by the gentlest and most considerate of surgeons, Dr. Webber of the Rhode Island.

For an hour or more we watched from the deck of the Rhode Island the lonely light upon the Monitor's turret; a hundred times we thought it gone forever,—a hundred times it reappeared, till at last, about two o'clock, Wednesday morning, it sank, and we saw it no more.

We had looked, too, most anxiously, for the whale-boat which had last gone out, under the command of Master's-Mate Brown, but saw no signs of it. We knew it had reached the Monitor, but whether swamped by the waved, or drawn in as the Monitor went down, we could not tell. Captain Trenchard would not leave the spot, but sailed about, looking in vain for the missing boat, till late Wednesday afternoon, when it would have been given up as hopelessly lost, except for the captain's dependence on the coolness and skill of its tried officer. He thought it useless to search longer, but, hoping it might have been picked up by some coasting vessel, turned towards Fortress Monroe.

Two days' sail brought us to the fort, whence we had started on Monday with so many glowing hopes, and, alas! with some who were never to return. The same kindness met us here as on the Rhode Island; loans of money, clothing, and other necessaries, were offered us. It was almost well to have suffered, so much beautiful feeling did it bring out.

A day or two at the fort, waiting for official permission to return to our homes, and we were on our way,—the week seeming, as we looked back upon it, like some wild dream. One thing only appeared real: our little vessel was lost, and we, who, in months gone by, had learned to love her, felt a strange pang go through us as we remembered that never more might we tread her deck, or gather in her little cabin at evening.

We had left her behind us, one more treasure added to the priceless store which Ocean so jealously hides. The Cumberland and Congress went first; the little boat that avenged their loss has followed; in both noble souls have gone down. Their names are for history; and so long as we remain a people, so long will the work of the Monitor be remembered, and her story told to our children's children.

* * * * *

LYRICS OF THE STREET.

V.

THE DARKENED HOUSE.

One year ago, this dreary night, This house, that, in my way, Checks the swift pulses of delight, Was cordial glad, and gay.

The household angels tended there Their ivy-cinctured bower, And by the hardier plant grew fair A lovely lily-flower.

The skies rained sunshine on its head, It throve in summer air: "How straight and sound!" the father said; The mother said, "How fair!"

One little year is gathering up Its glories to depart; The skies have left one marble drop Within the lily's heart.

For growth and bloom no more avails The Seasons' changing breath; With sudden constancy it feels The sculpture-touch of Death

But from its breast let golden rays, Immortal, break and rise, Linking the sorrow-clouded days With dawning Paradise.

* * * * *

AMERICA THE OLD WORLD.

First-born among the Continents, though so much later in culture and civilization than some of more recent birth, America, so far as her physical history is concerned, has been falsely denominated the New World. Hers was the first dry land lifted out of the waters, hers the first shore washed by the ocean that enveloped all the earth beside; and while Europe was represented only by islands rising here and there above the sea, America already stretched an unbroken line of land from Nova Scotia to the far West.

In the present state of our knowledge, our conclusions respecting the beginning of the earth's history, the way in which it took form and shape as a distinct, separate planet, must, of course, be very vague and hypothetical. Yet the progress of science is so rapidly reconstructing the past that we may hope to solve even this problem; and to one who looks upon man's appearance upon the earth as the crowning work in a succession of creative acts, all of which have had relation to his coming in the end, it will not seem strange that he should at last be allowed to understand a history which was but the introduction to his own existence. It is my belief that not only the future, but the past also, is the inheritance of man, and that we shall yet conquer our lost birthright.

Even now our knowledge carries us far enough to warrant the assertion that there was a time when our earth was in a state of igneous fusion, when no ocean bathed it and no atmosphere surrounded it, when no wind blew over it and no rain fell upon it, but an intense heat held all its materials in solution. In those days the rocks which are now the very bones and sinews of our mother earth—her granites, her porphyries, her basalts, her syenites—were melted into a liquid mass. As I am writing for the unscientific reader, who may not be familiar with the facts through which these inferences have been reached, I will answer here a question which, were we talking together, he might naturally ask in a somewhat skeptical tone. How do you know that this state of things ever existed, and, supposing that the solid materials of which our earth consists were ever in a liquid condition, what right have you to infer that this condition was caused by the action of heat upon them? I answer, Because it is acting upon them still; because the earth we tread is but a thin crust floating on a liquid sea of fire; because the agencies that were at work then are at work now, and the present is the logical sequence of the past. From artesian wells, from mines, from geysers, from hot springs, a mass of facts has been collected proving incontestably the heated condition of all materials at a certain depth below the earth's surface; and if we need more positive evidence, we have it in the fiery eruptions that even now bear fearful testimony to the molten ocean seething within the globe and forcing its way out from time to time. The modern progress of Geology has led us by successive and perfectly connected steps back to a time when what is now only an occasional and rare phenomenon was the normal condition of our earth; when those internal fires were inclosed in an envelope so thin that it opposed but little resistance to their frequent outbreak, and they constantly forced themselves through this crust, pouring out melted materials that subsequently cooled and consolidated on its surface. So constant were these eruptions, and so slight was the resistance they encountered, that some portions of the earlier rock-deposits are perforated with numerous chimneys, narrow tunnels as it were, bored by the liquid masses that poured out through them and greatly modified their first condition.

The question at once suggests itself, How was even this thin crust formed? what should cause any solid envelope, however slight and filmy when compared to the whole bulk of the globe, to form upon the surface of such a molten mass? At this point of the investigation the geologist must appeal to the astronomer; for in this vague and nebulous border-land, where the very rocks lose their outlines and flow into each other, where matter exists only in its essential elements, not yet specialized into definite forms and substances,—there the two sciences meet. Astronomy shows us our planet thrown off from the central mass of which it once formed a part, to move henceforth in an independent orbit of its own. That orbit, it tells us, passed through celestial spaces cold enough to chill this heated globe, and of course to consolidate it externally. We know, from the action of similar causes on a smaller scale and on comparatively insignificant objects immediately about us, what must have been the effect of this cooling process upon the heated mass of the globe. All substances when heated occupy more space than they do when cold. Water, which expands when freezing, is the only exception to this rule. The first effect of cooling the surface of our planet must have been to solidify it, and thus to form a film or crust over it. That crust would shrink as the cooling process went on; in consequence of the shrinking, wrinkles and folds would arise upon it, and here and there, where the tension was too great, cracks and fissures would be produced. In proportion as the surface cooled, the masses within would be affected by the change of temperature outside of them, and would consolidate internally also, the crust gradually thickening by this process.

But there was another element without the globe, equally powerful in building it up. Fire and water wrought together in this work, if not always harmoniously, at least with equal force and persistency. I have said that there was a time when no atmosphere surrounded the earth; but one of the first results of the cooling of its crust must have been the formation of an atmosphere, with all the phenomena connected with it,—the rising of vapors, their condensation into clouds, the falling of rains, the gathering of waters upon its surface. Water is a very active agent of destruction, but it works over again the materials it pulls down or wears away, and builds them up anew in other forms. As soon as an ocean washed over the consolidated crust of the globe, it would begin to abrade the surfaces upon which it moved, gradually loosening and detaching materials, to deposit them again as sand or mud or pebbles at its bottom in successive layers, one above another. Thus, in analyzing the crust of the globe, we find at once two kinds of rocks, the respective work of fire and water: the first poured out from the furnaces within, and cooling, as one may see any mass of metal cool that is poured out from a smelting-furnace today, in solid crystalline masses, without any division into separate layers or leaves; and the latter in successive beds, one over another, the heavier materials below, the lighter above, or sometimes in alternate layers, as special causes may have determined successive deposits of lighter or heavier materials at some given spot.

There were many well-fought battles between geologists before it was understood that these two elements had been equally active in building up the crust of the earth. The ground was hotly contested by the disciples of the two geological schools, one of which held that the solid envelope of the earth was exclusively due to the influence of fire, while the other insisted that it had been accumulated wholly under the agency of water. This difference of opinion grew up very naturally; for the great leaders of the two schools lived in different localities, and pursued their investigations over regions where the geological phenomena were of an entirely opposite character,—the one exhibiting the effect of volcanic eruptions, the other that of stratified deposits. It was the old story of the two knights on opposite sides of the shield, one swearing that it was made of gold, the other that it was made of silver, and almost killing each other before they discovered that it was made of both. So prone are men to hug their theories and shut their eyes to any antagonistic facts, that it is related of Werner, the great leader of the Aqueons school, that he was actually on his way to see a geological locality of especial interest, but, being told that it confirmed the views of his opponents, he turned round and went home again, refusing to see what might force him to change his opinions. If the rocks did not confirm his theory, so much the worse for the rocks,—he would none of them. At last it was found that the two great chemists, fire and water, had worked together in the vast laboratory of the globe, and since then scientific men have decided to work together also; and if they still have a passage at arms occasionally over some doubtful point, yet the results of their investigations are ever drawing them nearer to each other,—since men who study truth, when they reach their goal, must always meet at last on common ground.

The rocks formed under the influence of heat are called, in geological language, the Igneous, or, as some naturalists have named them, the Plutonic rocks, alluding to their fiery origin, while the others have been called Aqueous or Neptunic rocks, in reference to their origin under the agency of water. A simpler term, however, quite as distinctive, and more descriptive of their structure, is that of the stratified and unstratified or massive rocks. We shall see hereafter how the relative position of these two kinds of rocks and their action upon each other enables us to determine the chronology of the earth, to compare the age of her mountains, and if we have no standard by which to estimate the positive duration of her continents, to say at least which was the first-born among them, and how their characteristic features have been successively worked out. I am aware that many of these inferences, drawn from what is called "the geological record," must seem to be the work of the imagination. In a certain sense this is true,—for imagination, chastened by correct observation, is our best guide in the study of Nature. We are too apt to associate the exercise of this faculty with works of fiction, while it is in fact the keenest detective of truth.

Beside the stratified and unstratified rocks, there is still a third set, produced by the contact of these two, and called, in consequence of the changes thus brought about, the Metamorphic rocks. The effect of heat upon clay is to bake it into slate; limestone under the influence of heat becomes quick-lime, or if subjected afterwards to the action of water, it is changed to mortar; sand under the same agency is changed to a coarse kind of glass. Suppose, then, that a volcanic eruption takes place in a region of the earth's surface where successive layers of limestone, of clay, and of sandstone have been previously deposited by the action of water. If such an eruption has force enough to break through these beds, the hot, melted masses will pour out through the rent, flow over its edges, and fill all the lesser cracks and fissures produced by such a disturbance. What will be the effect upon the stratified rocks? Wherever these liquid masses, melted by a heat more intense than can be produced by any artificial means, have flowed over them or cooled in immediate contact with them, the clays will be changed to slate, the limestone will have assumed a character more like marble, while the sandstones will be vitrified. This is exactly what has been found to be the case, wherever the stratified rocks have been penetrated by the melted masses from beneath. They have been themselves partially melted by the contact, and when they have cooled again, their stratification, though still perceptible, has been partly obliterated, and their substance changed. Such effects may often be traced in dikes, which are only the cracks in rocks filled by materials poured into them at some period of eruption when the melted masses within the earth were thrown out and flowed like water into any inequality or depression of the surface around. The walls that inclose such a dike are often found to be completely altered by contact with its burning contents, and to have assumed a character quite different from the rocks of which they make a part; while the mass itself which fills the fissure shows by the character of its crystallization that it has cooled more quickly on the outside, where it meets the walls, than at the centre.

The first two great classes of rocks, the unstratified and stratified rocks, represent different epochs in the world's physical history: the former mark its revolutions, while the latter chronicle its periods of rest. All mountains and mountain-chains have been upheaved by great convulsions of the globe, which rent asunder the surface of the earth, destroyed the animals and plants living upon it at the time, and were then succeeded by long intervals of repose, when all things returned to their accustomed order, ocean and river deposited fresh beds in uninterrupted succession, the accumulation of materials went on as before, a new set of animals and plants were introduced, and a time of building up and renewing followed the time of destruction. These periods of revolution are naturally more difficult to decipher than the periods of rest; for they have so torn and shattered the beds they uplifted, disturbing them from their natural relations to each other, that it is not easy to reconstruct the parts and give them coherence and completeness again. But within the last half-century this work has been accomplished in many parts of the world with an amazing degree of accuracy, considering the disconnected character of the phenomena to be studied; and I think I shall be able to convince my readers that the modern results of geological investigation are perfectly sound logical inferences from well-established facts. In this, as in so many other things, we are but "children of a larger growth." The world is the geologist's great puzzle-box; he stands before it like the child to whom the separate pieces of his puzzle remain a mystery till he detects their relation and sees where they fit, and then his fragments grow at once into a connected picture beneath his hand.

It is a curious fact in the history of progress, that, by a kind of intuitive insight, the earlier observers seem to have had a wider, more comprehensive recognition of natural phenomena as a whole than their successors, who far excel them in their knowledge of special points, but often lose their grasp of broader relations in the more minute investigation of details. When geologists first turned their attention to the physical history of the earth, they saw at once certain great features which they took to be the skeleton and basis of the whole structure. They saw the great masses of granite forming the mountains and mountain-chains, with the stratified rocks resting against their slopes; and they assumed that granite was the first primary agent, and that all stratified rocks must be of a later formation. Although this involved a partial error, as we shall see hereafter, when we trace the upheavals of granite even into comparatively modern periods, yet it held a great geological truth also; for, though granite formations are by no means limited to those early periods, they are nevertheless very characteristic of them, and are indeed the great foundation-stones on which the physical history of the globe is built.

Starting from this landmark, the earlier geologists divided the world's history into three periods. As the historian recognizes as distinct phases in the growth of the human race Ancient History, the Middle Ages, and Modern History, so they distinguished between what they called the Primary period, when, as they believed, no life stirred on the surface of the earth, the Secondary or middle period, when animals and plants were introduced and the land began to assume continental proportions, and the Tertiary period, or comparatively modern geological times, when the aspect of the earth as well as its inhabitants was approaching more nearly to the present condition of things. But as their investigations proceeded, they found that every one of these great ages of the world's history was divided into numerous lesser epochs, each of which had been characterized by a peculiar set of animals and plants, and had been closed by some great physical convulsion, that disturbed and displaced the materials accumulated during such a period of rest. The further study of these subordinate periods showed that what had been called Primary formations, the volcanic or Plutonic rocks, formerly believed to be confined to the first geological ages, belonged to all the periods, successive eruptions having taken place at all times, pouring up through the accumulated deposits, penetrating and injecting their cracks, fissures, and inequalities, as well as throwing out large masses on the surface. Up to our own day there has never been a period when such eruptions have not taken place, though they have been constantly diminishing in frequency and extent. In consequence of this discovery, that rocks of igneous character were by no means exclusively characteristic of the earliest times, they are now classified together upon very different grounds from those on which geologists first united them; though, as the name Primary was long retained, we still find it applied to them, even in geological works of quite recent date. This defect of nomenclature is to be regretted as likely to mislead the student, because it seems to refer to time; whereas it no longer signifies the age of the rocks, but simply their character. The name Plutonic or Massive rocks is, however, now almost universally substituted for that of Primary.

There is still a wide field of investigation to be explored by the chemist and the geologist together, in the mineralogical character of the Plutonic rocks, which differs greatly in the different periods. The earlier eruptions seem to have been chiefly granitic, though this must not be understood in too wide a sense, since there are granite formations even as late as the Tertiary period; those of the middle periods were mostly porphyries and basalts; while in the more recent ones, lavas predominate. We have as yet no clue to the laws by which this distribution of volcanic elements in the formation of the earth is regulated; but there is found to be a difference in the crystals of the Plutonic rocks belonging to different ages, which, when fully understood, enables us to determine the age of any Plutonic rock by its mode of crystallization; so that the mineralogist will as readily tell you by its crystals whether a bit of stone of igneous origin belongs to this or that period of the world's history, as the palaeontologist will tell you by its fossils whether a piece of rock of aqueous origin belongs to the Silurian or Devonian or Carboniferous deposits. Although subsequent investigations have multiplied so extensively not only the number of geological periods, but also the successive creations that have characterized them, yet the first general division into three great eras was nevertheless founded upon a broad and true generalization. In the first stratified rocks in which any organic remains are found, the highest animals are fishes, and the highest plants are cryptogams; in the middle periods reptiles come in, accompanied by fern and moss forests; in later times quadrupeds are introduced, with a dicotyledonous vegetation. So closely does the march of animal and vegetable life keep pace with the material progress of the world, that we may well consider these three divisions, included under the first general classification of its physical history, as the three Ages of Nature; the more important epochs which subdivide them may be compared to so many great dynasties, while the lesser periods are the separate reigns contained therein. Of such epochs there are ten, well known to geologists; of the lesser periods about sixty are already distinguished, while many more loom up from the dim regions of the past, just discerned by the eye of science, though their history is not yet unravelled.

Before proceeding farther, I will enumerate the geological epochs in their succession, confining myself, however, to such as are perfectly well established, without alluding to those of which the limits are less definitely determined, and which are still subject to doubts and discussions among geologists. As I do not propose to make here any treatise of Geology, but simply to place before my readers some pictures of the old world, with the animals and plants that inhabited it at various times, I shall avoid, as far as possible, all debatable ground, and confine myself to those parts of my subject which are best known, and can therefore be more clearly presented.

First, we have the Azoic period, devoid of life, as its name signifies,—namely, the earliest stratified deposits upon the heated film forming the first solid surface of the earth, in which no trace of living thing has ever been found. Next comes the Silurian period, when the crust of the earth had thickened and cooled sufficiently to render the existence of animals and plants upon it possible, and when the atmospheric conditions necessary to their maintenance were already established. Many of the names given to these periods are by no means significant of their character, but are merely the result of accident: as, for instance, that of Silurian, given by Sir Roderick Murchison to this set of beds, because he first studied them in that part of Wales occupied by the ancient tribe of the Silures. The next period, the Devonian, was for a similar reason named after the county of Devonshire, in England, where it was first investigated. Upon this follows the Carboniferous period, with the immense deposits of coal from which it derives its name. Then comes the Permian period, named, again, from local circumstances, the first investigation of its deposits having taken place in the province of Permia, in Russia. Next in succession we have the Triassic period, so called from the trio of rocks, the red sandstone, Muschel Kalk, (shell-limestone.) and Keuper, (clay,) most frequently combined in its formations; the Jurassic, so amply illustrated in the chain of the Jura, where geologists first found the clue to its history; and the Cretaceous period, to which the chalk cliffs of England and all the extensive chalk deposits belong. Upon these follow the so-called Tertiary formations, divided into three periods, all of which have received most characteristic names. In this epoch of the world's history we see the first approach to a condition of things resembling that now prevailing, and Sir Charles Lyell has most fitly named its three divisions, the "Eocene," or the dawn, the "Miocene," meaning the continuance and increase of that light, and lastly, the "Pliocene," signifying its fulness and completion. Above these deposits comes what has been called in science the present period,—the modern times of the geologist,—that period to which man himself belongs, and since the beginning of which, though its duration be counted by hundreds of thousands of years, there has been no alteration in the general configuration of the earth, consequently no important modification of its climatic conditions, and no change in the animals and plants inhabiting it.

I have spoken of the first of these periods, the Azoic, as having been absolutely devoid of life, and I believe this statement to be strictly true; but I ought to add that there is a difference of opinion among geologists upon this point, many believing that the first surface of our globe may have been inhabited by living beings, but that all traces of their existence have been obliterated by the eruptions of melted materials, which not only altered the character of those earliest stratified rocks, but destroyed all the organic remains contained in them. It will be my object to show in this series of papers, not only that the absence of the climatic and atmospheric conditions essential to organic life as we understand it, must have rendered the previous existence of any living beings impossible, but also that the completeness of the Animal Kingdom in those deposits where we first find organic remains, its intelligible and coherent connection with the successive creations of all geological times and with the animals now living, affords the strongest internal evidence that we have indeed found in the lower Silurian formations, immediately following the Azoic, the beginning of life upon earth. When a story seems to us complete and consistent from the beginning to the end, we shall not seek for a first chapter, even though the copy in which we have read it be so torn and defaced as to suggest the idea that some portion of it may have been lost. The unity of the work, as a whole, is an incontestable proof that we possess it in its original integrity. The validity of this argument will be recognized, perhaps, only by those naturalists to whom the Animal Kingdom has begun to appear as a connected whole. For those who do not see order in Nature it can have no value.

For a table containing the geological periods in their succession, I would refer to any modern text-book of Geology; or to an article in the "Atlantic Monthly" for March, 1862, upon "Methods of Study in Natural History," where they are given in connection with the order of introduction of animals upon earth.

Were these sets of rocks found always in the regular sequence in which I have enumerated them, their relative ago would be easily determined, for their superposition would tell the whole story: the lowest would, of course, be the oldest, and we might follow without difficulty the ascending series, till we reached the youngest and uppermost deposits. But their succession has been broken up by frequent and violent alterations in the configuration of the globe. Land and water have changed their level,—islands have been transformed to continents,—sea-bottoms have become dry land, and dry land has sunk to form sea-bottom,—Alps and Himalayas, Pyrenees and Apennines, Alleghanies and Rocky Mountains, have had their stormy birthdays since many of these beds have been piled one above another, and there are but few spots on the earth's surface where any number of them may be found in their original order and natural position. When we remember that Europe, which lies before us on the map as a continent, was once an archipelago of islands,—that, where the Pyrenees raise their rocky barrier between France and Spain, the waters of the Mediterranean and Atlantic met,—that, where the British Channel flows, dry land united England and France, and Nature in those days made one country of the lands parted since by enmities deeper than the waters that run between,—when we remember, in short, all the fearful convulsions that have torn asunder the surface of the earth, as if her rocky record had indeed been written on paper, we shall find a new evidence of the intellectual unity which holds together the whole physical history of the globe in the fact that through all the storms of time the investigator is able to trace one unbroken thread of thought from the beginning to the present hour.

The tree is known by its fruits,—and the fruits of chance are incoherence, incompleteness, unsteadiness, the stammering utterance of blind, unreasoning force. A coherence that binds all the geological ages in one chain, a stability of purpose that completes in the beings born to-day an intention expressed in the first creatures that swam in the Silurian ocean or crept upon its shores, a steadfastness of thought, practically recognized by man, if not acknowledged by him, whenever he traces the intelligent connection between the facts of Nature and combines them into what he is pleased to call his system of Geology, or Zoology, or Botany,—these things are not the fruits of chance or of an unreasoning force, but the legitimate results of intellectual power. There is a singular lack of logic, as it seems to me, in the views of the materialistic naturalists. While they consider classification, or, in other words, their expression of the relations between animals or between physical facts of any kind, as the work of their intelligence, they believe the relations themselves to be the work of physical causes. The more direct inference surely is, that, if it requires an intelligent mind to recognize them, it must have required an intelligent mind to establish them. These relations existed before man was created; they have existed ever since the beginning of time; hence, what we call the classification of facts is not the work of his mind in any direct original sense, but the recognition of an intelligent action prior to his own existence.

There is, perhaps, no part of the world, certainly none familiar to science, where the early geological periods can be studied with so much ease and precision as in the United States. Along their northern borders, between Canada and the United States, there runs the low line of hills known as the Laurentian Hills. Insignificant in height, nowhere rising more than fifteen hundred or two thousand feet above the level of the sea, these are nevertheless the first mountains that broke the uniform level of the earth's surface and lifted themselves above the waters. Their low stature, as compared with that of other more lofty mountain-ranges, is in accordance with an invariable rule, by which the relative age of mountains may be estimated. The oldest mountains are the lowest, while the younger and more recent ones tower above their elders, and are usually more torn and dislocated also. This is easily understood, when we remember that all mountains and mountain-chains are the result of upheavals, and that the violence of the outbreak must have been in proportion to the strength of the resistance. When the crust of the earth was so thin that the heated masses within easily broke through it, they were not thrown to so great a height, and formed comparatively low elevations, such as the Canadian hills or the mountains of Bretagne and Wales. But in later times, when young, vigorous giants, such as the Alps, the Himalayas, or, later still, the Rocky Mountains, forced their way out from their fiery prison-house, the crust of the earth was much thicker, and fearful indeed must have been the convulsions which attended their exit.

The Laurentian Hills form, then, a granite range, stretching from Eastern Canada to the Upper Mississippi, and immediately along its base are gathered the Azoic deposits, the first stratified beds, in which the absence of life need not surprise us, since they were formed beneath a heated ocean. As well might we expect to find the remains of fish or shells or crabs at the bottom of geysers or of boiling springs, as on those early shores bathed by an ocean of which the heat must have been so intense. Although, from the condition in which we find it, this first granite range has evidently never been disturbed by any violent convulsion since its first upheaval, yet there has been a gradual rising of that part of the continent, for the Azoic beds do not lie horizontally along the base of the Laurentian Hills in the position in which they must originally have been deposited, but are lifted and rest against their slopes. They have been more or less dislocated in this process, and are greatly metamorphized by the intense heat to which they must have been exposed. Indeed, all the oldest stratified rocks have been baked by the prolonged action of heat.

It may be asked how the materials for those first stratified deposits were provided. In later times, when an abundant and various soil covered the earth, when every river brought down to the ocean, not only its yearly tribute of mud or clay or lime, but the débris of animals and plants that lived and died in its waters or along its banks, when every lake and pond deposited at its bottom in successive layers the lighter or heavier materials floating in its waters and settling gradually beneath them, the process by which stratified materials are collected and gradually harden into rock is more easily understood. But when the solid surface of the earth was only just beginning to form, it would seem that the floating matter in the sea can hardly have been in sufficient quantity to form any extensive deposits. No doubt there was some abrasion even of that first crust; but the more abundant source of the earliest stratification is to be found in the submarine volcanoes that poured their liquid streams into the first ocean. At what rate these materials would be distributed and precipitated in regular strata it is impossible to determine; but that volcanic materials were so deposited in layers is evident from the relative position of the earliest rocks. I have already spoken of the innumerable chimneys perforating the Azoic beds, narrow outlets of Plutonic rock, protruding through the earliest strata. Not only are such funnels filled with the crystalline mass of granite that flowed through them in a liquid state, but it has often poured over their sides, mingling with the stratified beds around. In the present state of our knowledge, we can explain such appearances only by supposing that the heated materials within the earth's crust poured out frequently, meeting little resistance,—that they then scattered and were precipitated in the ocean around, settling in successive strata at its bottom,—that through such strata the heated masses within continued to pour again and again, forming for themselves the chimney-like outlets above mentioned.

Such, then, was the earliest American land,—a long, narrow island, almost continental in its proportions, since it stretches from the eastern borders of Canada nearly to the point where now the base of the Rocky Mountains meets the plain of the Mississippi Valley. We may still walk along its ridge and know that we tread upon the ancient granite that first divided the waters into a northern and southern ocean; and if our imaginations will carry us so far, we may look down toward its base and fancy how the sea washed against this earliest shore of a lifeless world. This is no romance, but the bald, simple truth; for the fact that this granite band was lifted out of the waters so early in the history of the world, and has not since been submerged, has, of course, prevented any subsequent deposits from forming above it. And this is true of all the northern part of the United States. It has been lifted gradually, the beds deposited in one period being subsequently raised, and forming a shore along which those of the succeeding one collected, so that we have their whole sequence before us. In regions where all the geological deposits, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, etc., are piled one upon another, and we can get a glimpse of their internal relations only where some rent has laid them open, or where their ragged edges, worn away by the abrading action of external influences, expose to view their successive layers, it must, of course, be more difficult to follow their connection. For this reason the American continent offers facilities to the geologist denied to him in the so-called Old World, where the earlier deposits are comparatively hidden, and the broken character of the land, intersected by mountains in every direction, renders his investigation still more difficult. Of course, when I speak of the geological deposits as so completely unveiled to us here, I do not forget the sheet of drift which covers the continent from North to South, and which we shall discuss hereafter, when I reach that part of my subject. But the drift is only a superficial and recent addition to the soil, resting loosely above the other geological deposits, and arising, as we shall see, from very different causes.

In this article I have intended to limit myself to a general sketch of the formation of the Laurentian Hills with the Azoic stratified beds resting against them. In the Silurian epoch following the Azoic we have the first beach on which any life stirred; it extended along the base of the Azoic beds, widening by its extensive deposits the narrow strip of land already upheaved. I propose in my next article to invite my readers to a stroll with me along that beach.

* * * * *

PERICLES AND PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

Ancient history is forever indispensable to the speculative historian. The ground of its value is the very fact of its antiquity; by which we mean, not simply distance in time, but distance as the result of separate construction,—distance as between two systems of reality, each orbicularly distinct from the other. One system—that with which our destiny is concurrent—is still flying its rounds in space; the other has whirled itself out of space, and through a maze of scattered myths and records, into human remembrances. This latter system, though hermetically sealed to the realities of outward existence, still, and by this very exclusion from all practical uses, becomes of paramount interest to the philosophic historian; indeed, it is only because the shadowy planets of the ancient cycle still repeat their revolutions in human thought, that the philosophy of history is at all possible. Philosophy, in its ideal pretensions, frequently forgets its material conditions: it claims for itself the power of constructing wholes in thought where only parts have been given in reality, as if, dispensing with material supports, it could bridge over a chasm in Nature. And so it seems to do, but so in fact it never does; it never builds but on models; it never in any system gives ideal completeness, until a real completeness is furnished, either through this system or some other that is analogous. There can, therefore, be no speculative anticipation in history, save as it makes its way into the blank future along the line of diagrams furnished by the past; the splendid composition, in our thoughts, of realities as yet undeveloped, is set up in the skeleton types left us of realities that not only have themselves been accomplished, but which belong to a system that is concluded.

Else,—if the philosophy of history does not thus depend upon some sort of real conclusions for its notional ones,—why is it that no such philosophy existed, even in name, among the ancients? It may be said that some prevailing practical motive is necessary to the existence of philosophy in any field, and that no such motive was present to the ancient mind in this particular field of history. Admitted; yet this does not at all disturb our position. No motive would have sufficed for so grand an aim, short of a sublime consciousness regarding the destiny of the human race. But whence was this consciousness to be derived? To the ancient mind, the development of the human drama, considered strictly as human, moved within narrow boundaries; traced backward through a number of generations so limited that they might be counted on one's fingers, the human personae, did not absolutely disappear, but they emerged again, and in a precedent cycle, only as divinities. The consciousness of human destiny was thus elevated by infinite grades, but not of this destiny as human, as depending for its splendors upon the human will. It was an exaltation that consisted in the sacrifice of humanity. No definite records existed through which any previous cycle of human events could be translated into thought; and in default of a human, there was substituted a divine cycle. From this mythologic past of the ancients was reflected upon their present every-day existence a peculiar glory; but it was not the glory of humanity. To celestial or infernal powers were attributed the motives and impulses out of which their life was developed, not to the human will. The future, as a matter of course, partook of this divine investment; so that history to the ancients was something which in either direction was lost in mystery, not a system to be philosophically analyzed, or to be based on principles of any sort. It is true that in the time of Herodotus, when nations, hitherto insulated, came to know each other better, an interest began to be awakened in history as resting upon a human basis; but this is to be accounted for only by the fact, that each nation coming in contact with another received from it the record of a development differing from its own in the details of outward circumstances, yet similar in certain general features; and in some cases, as in that of Egypt, there was presented an historic epos anterior in time. But in no case were furnished hints so suggestive as those which ancient history furnishes to us, nor any which would answer the purposes of philosophy; in no case was there presented a completed arch, but only antecedent parts of a structure yet in suspense respecting its own conclusion. Fate uncourteously insisted upon making her disclosures by separate instalments; she would advance nothing at any rate of discount. What, therefore, was the ancient philosopher to do? His reflections concerning the past must of necessity be partial; how much more would his anticipations of the future fail of anything like demonstrative certitude!

We moderns, on the other hand, are eminently fortunate, because within the cycle of our thoughts revolves the entire epos of the ancient world. Here there is the element of completeness: it is our privilege to look upon the final tableau before the curtain falls, to have gathered in the concluding no less than the prelusive signals, to have seen where the last stone in the arch bottoms upon a real basis. Let it be that to us it is a drama of shadows; yet are none of the prominent features lost; indeed, they are rather magnified by the distance; our actors upon the ancient proscenium walk in buskins and look upon us out of masks whose significance has been intensified by remoteness in time. This view of the case yields an ample refutation of those arguments frequently adduced of late, in certain quarters, to prove the inutility of classical studies. Thus, it is urged, that, in every department of human knowledge, we transcend the most splendid acquirements of the ancients, and therefore that it is so much time wasted which we devote towards keeping up an acquaintance with antiquity. But how is it that we so far overtop the ancients? Simply by preserving our conscious connection with them, just as manhood towers above childhood through the remembered experiences of childhood. As an evidence of this, we need only note the sudden impulse which modern civilization received through the revival of ancient literature. As it is by resolving into constellations the nebulae, disconnected from the earth by vast intervals of space, that we conjecture the awful magnitude of the universe, so do we conjecture the magnitude of human life by resolving into distinct shapes the nebulous mist of antiquity separated from us by vast intervals in time. The profoundest lessons, such as are heeded by the race, such as are universally intelligible, have this obliquity of origin. Thus, in the distractions of the present, no relief is found through compensatory consolations from the present; but we turn to the figures of the past,—figures caught in the mind, and held fixed, as in bas-relief,—figures in the attitude of antagonistic strife or of sublime rest,—figures that master our intellects as can none from the tumultuous present, (excepting the present of dreams,) and that out of their eternal repose anticipate for us contingencies that do not yet exist, but are representatively typified through such as have existed and passed away.

It is a fact well ascertained in physical geography, that the New World and the Old stand over against each other, not merely as antipodal opposites, but so corresponding in outline that a promontory in one is met by a gulf in the other, and sinuous seas by outstanding continents, (so that over against the Gulf of Mexico, for instance, is opposed the projection of Western Africa,) as if the gods had, in the registry of some important covenant, rent the earth in twain for indentures. In this way, also, do the two great hemispheres of Time stand opposed; so that, from the shaping of the ancient, we may anticipate even the undeveloped conformation of the modern: in place of the direct reality, which is of necessity wanting, we have the next best thing to guide us even in our most perilous coastings, namely, its well-defined analogue in the remote past.

Thus, considering merely this analogism, might one have prophetically announced, even in the generations immediately succeeding to Christ, when Christianity bade fair to become a world-power in a new civilization, that here, indeed, was a new planting of Mysteries, which, although infinitely transcending them in fulness and meaning, were yet the counterparts of mysteries which had hitherto swayed the human heart,—but that, pure and holy as were these mysteries, they should yet, in their human connections, share the vicissitudes of the old,—that, like them, they should march through tribulations on to triumph,—that, like them, once having triumphed and become a recognized source of power, they should be linked with hierarchical delusions and the degradations of despotism,—that, like them, too, in some future generation, they should, through the protesting intellect, be uplifted from these delusions and degradations. Thus, also, and following the same guidance, might our prophet have foretold the political shapings of the newly emerging hemisphere of Christendom. He would thus, through a precise analogy in ancient history, have anticipated the conjunction of principles so novel in their operation as were those of Christianity with the new races, then lying in wait along the skirts of the Roman Empire, and biding their time. From a necessity already demonstrated in the ancient world, he would have foreseen the necessity of Feudalism for the modern, as following inevitably in the train of barbarian conquest, the recurrence of which had been distinctly foreshadowed. In connection with the Protestantism of intellect in religious matters, he would have anticipated a similar movement in politics; he would have prefigured the conflict that was to be renewed between the many and the few for power; and if by some miracle his material vision could have been made coextensive in space with the scope which was possible for him in thought, if he could have followed the sails of Columbus across the Atlantic, then, in connection with the transference of European civilization to the New World, and foreseeing the revulsion in habits and institutions that must follow such local separation, he might have indicated the arena which representatively was to stand for Christendom, and in which, if anywhere, the great problem of human freedom should be solved, either by a success so grand that the very reflex of its splendor should illumine the universal heart of man, or by a failure so overwhelming and disastrous that the ruinous impulse should be communicated with the crushing effect of a thunderbolt through the whole structure of Christian civilization.

Standing, as we do, face to face with the crisis in which this problem is to be solved, and through one part or the other of the alternative just stated, it is evident, from what has already been said, that no light can so fully illustrate the position and its contingencies as that which reaches us from antiquity, and through analogies such as we have hinted at in the preceding paragraphs.

In the first place, in order properly to understand the specific analogy which we now proceed to develop and apply to the case in hand, it is absolutely necessary that the reader should fix Hellas in his mind's eye as the counterpart of Christendom. Let it be understood, then, that all that preceded Hellenism in the ancient world was but the vestibule of its magnificent temple, and that the sole function of the Roman Empire, which came afterwards, was to tide the world over from Hellenic realities to the more sublime realities of Christianity. The mighty deeds of Egyptian conquerors, the imperial splendors of Persian dynasties,—these were but miniature gems that gilded the corridors and archways in the propylaea of ancient civilization; and on the other side, the brilliancy of the Caesars was not that of an original sun in the heavens, since, in one half of their course, they did but reflect the sunset glories of Greece, and, in the other, the rising glories of Christianity. From Macedonia, then, in the North, southward to the sea, and from the heroic age to the Battle of Pydna, (168 B.C.,) extended, in space and time, the original and peculiar splendors of antiquity.

But two of the Hellenic States were consecrated to a special office of glory. These two were Athens and Sparta; and the sublime mission which it was allotted them to fulfil in history was this, that they, within limited boundaries, should concentrate all ante-Christian excellence,—that these two States, opposite in their whole character, should, through the conflict between their antagonistic elements, test the strength and worthiness of ante-Christian principles. Precisely in the same relation to Christendom stands America, with her two opposite types of civilization arrayed against each other in mortal conflict. Here must be tested the merits of modern civilization, just as in Peloponnesus and Attica were tested those of the old; here, too, must be tested the strength even of Christianity as a practical power in the political world. Where Ionic and Doric Greece stood twenty-three centuries ago, stand today the Northern and Southern sections of this country; they hold between them, as did their Hellenic prototypes, the heritage of laborious ages, and to their eyes alone have the slowly growing fruits of time seemed ready, from very ripeness, to fall into the lap of man. In either case, Hellenic or American, we look upon generations totally different in circumstance from those which came before them,—generations, freed not only from the despotic tutelage of Nature, (from whom they exact tribute, instead of, as formerly, paying it to her,) but also from the still more galling tutelage of ignorance and of the social necessities imposed by ignorance,—generations which, in either the ancient or modern instance, stand representatively for the whole race, and by necessity, since they only could fairly be said, unimpeded by external conditions, perfectly to represent themselves. It matters not whether we take the particular generation contemporary with Pericles or with President Lincoln (his modern redivivus); each stands illustrious as the last reach upward of the towering civilizations that respectively pushed them to this eminence; the highest point is in each case reached, and all that remains is to make this sublime elevation tenable for the race universally, so that, instead of the pyramidal mountain, we shall have the widely extended plateau.

Here we will anticipate a question which the reader, we imagine, is already about to put. He will readily admit that Greece, in her palmiest era, politically, grasped, in form and conception at least, the highest ideal of rational liberty; but why, he will ask, was not this divine boon made universally available? Why was it not extended to Persia, and to the Asiatic hosts that for security hid themselves in the folds of her garments? why not to the dwellers on the Nile? Why was it that it was not even retained by Greece herself? The truth is, that no sooner was the golden fleece in the hands of the adventurers that had sought it so zealously than it was rent by their discords. Elements of barbarism had run uncurbed alongside of intellectual and artistic refinements. Mingled with high-minded heroes were a set of treacherous Iscariots. But why, it will naturally be asked, had there not been hitherto some outbreak of these discordant elements? That question is easily answered, if we consider that up to this time there had existed certain external elements, which, by arousing incessantly the patriotic feelings of all Greece against hostilities from without, had administered an opiate to the Cerberus of domestic strife. The terrible storm was maturing its thunderbolts treacherously and in subterranean chambers; but its mutterings were effectually silenced by the more audible thunderings that burst across the Aegean from the Persian throne. Treachery was lulled to sleep, while the nobler sentiment which united Greece against Asiatic despotism was perpetually stung into activity in the popular heart, and inspired the utterances of eloquence. Thus it might not have been, if Greece had first come within hail of Persia through the ordinary commerce of peace; since, in that case, after receiving from the latter her treacherous gifts, her voluptuous effeminacies, she would easily have fallen into the vast net-work that already trammelled all Asia, and would then, through her own entanglement, include the whole world. But it was not in peace that they met. The first question put to Hellas by her Oriental neighbor was in effect this:—Are you willing, without going to the trouble of subjecting the matter to the test of actual conflict, to consider yourself as having been whipped? This, it must be confessed, was a shivering introduction to the world for Greece,—something like a Lacedaemonian baptism,—but it stood her in good stead. Like the dip in the Styx, it insured immortality. The menaces of despotism, coming from the East, gave birth to the impulses of freedom in the West; and the latter sustained themselves at a more exalted height, in proportion as the former were backed by substantial support. Subtract anything from that deafening chorus of slaves which follows in the train of Xerxes, and we must by the same amount take from the paeans of aspiring Greece. Abolish the outlying provinces that acknowledge a forced allegiance to the Persian monarch, or turn out of their course the tributary streams that from every part of Asia swell the current of Eastern barbarism, and there arises the necessity, also, of circumscribing within narrower limits the glories of the Western civilization. Against the dangers of external invasion, against all the menaces of barbarians, Greece was secure through the forces which by opposition were developed in herself,—and for so long a period was she secure against herself. But the very rapidity and decisiveness of her triumphs over the barbarian cut this period short, and cut short also the rising column of Hellenic power. At the same time that Cimon is finishing up the fleet of Persia, Pericles is preparing for the culmination of Greece. In all this there seemed nothing final; from the serenity of the Grecian sky, and from the summer silence which inwrapt her statues and Pentelic colonnades, there was heralded the promise of a ceaseless aeon of splendor. Resting from one mighty effort, and, in the moment of rest, clothing herself in the majesty of beauty, Hellas yet seemed ready to burst forth out of this rest into an effort more gigantic, to be followed by a more memorable rest as the reflex of a destiny more nearly consummated. But in this promise there was the very hollowness of deception. Just because the intense strain against external barbarism had relaxed, those elements which common necessity had made tributary to success and triumph began to suffer dissolution; each separate interest became a prominent centre of a distinct political crystallization; and it was in this way that certain elements of barbarism, inherent in Spartan civilization, now for the first time arrayed it in direct opposition to the Athenian. It was this defection, on the part of Sparta, from the cause of freedom, which cut the world off from those benefits that it was in the power of Greece to confer. Athens, whatever other faults she may have had, stood ready to extend these benefits. As she alone had awakened for herself an echo of Hellenic victory in her world of Art, so was she alone prepared, through a world-wide extension of this victory over slavery, to multiply the intellectual reflexes of so splendid a triumph; hers it was to disenthrall and illuminate the world. And here, where she had a right to look for the coöperation of all Greece, as hitherto, was she thwarted; here, holding the van in a procession of triumph, which, as carrying forward a glorious disinthralment into Asia and into Egypt, and as outfacing the most inveterate of all despotisms, should far out-rival the fabled procession of Dionysus,—here was she not merely hindered by the vis inertias of her southern neighbor, but was actually stopped in her movement by a newly revealed force of opposition, was flanked by an ancient ally, now turned traitor, in the summertime of a most auspicious peace; and in her efforts to disembarrass herself of this enemy in the rear, were her energies totally exhausted.

A position precisely similar, in its main features, does Republican America hold to-day. She has established her own freedom against all European intrusion; and in her efforts to do this she arrived at political union as an indispensable necessity, and merged all separate interests in a common one. That interest, already vindicated for herself, has become world-wide in its meaning; so that, in virtue of what she has accomplished in the cause of freedom, she takes an authoritative position of leadership in modern civilization. And what is it that hinders the fulfilment of her exalted mission? She, too, has been flanked in her march by a traitor within her own borders; against her, and doing violence to her high office, are opposed the backward-tending elements of barbarism, which, if not immediately neutralized, if not summarily crushed, will drag her to the lowest stages of weakness and exhaustion.

A very minute parallel might be, drawn between the opposing civilizations that are to-day in this country contending for the mastery and those which were engaged in a similar conflict in the days of Pericles. New England would be found to be the Attica of America; while, on the other hand, the Southrons would most exactly correspond to the ancient Lacedaemonians. As the Cavaliers who first settled Virginia helped on the Puritan exodus, so did the Dorians that settled Sparta, through the tumult of their overwhelming invasion, drive the Ionians from their old homes to the barren wastes of Attica,—barren as compared with the fertile valleys of the Eurotas, just as New England would be considered sterile when contrasted with Virginia or the Valley of the Mississippi. Like the Ionian Greeks, the "Yankees" stand before the world as the recognized advocates and supporters of a pure democracy. The descendants of the Cavaliers, on the contrary, join hands, as did the ancient Dorians, in favor of an oligarchy, and of an oligarchy, too, based on the institution of slavery. Upon this difference rested the political dissensions of Greece, as do now those of our own country. The negro plays no more important part in the difference between the North and South than did the Helot in the contests between the Spartans and the Athenians. It is not in either case the simple fact of human slavery which necessitates the civil strife, but it is the radical opposition between a government that is founded upon slavery and one which is not. The Athenians had slaves; and so, for that matter, might New England have to-day: yet, for all that, the civil strife would have been inevitable, because both in Greece and America this strife evidently arises out of the conflict between the interests of an oligarchy based upon slavery and a democracy in which slavery, if it exists at all, exists as a mere accident that may be dispensed with without any radical social revolution. Slavery, as opposed to divine law or to abstract justice, never has brought, nor ever will bring, two countries into conflict with each other; but slavery made indispensable as a peculiar institution, as an organized fact, as a fundamental social necessity, must come into conflict with the totally opposite institutions of democracy, and that not because it is merely or nominally slavery, but because it is a political organ modifying the entire structure of government. Slavery, as it existed in Athens, slavery, as it existed formerly in the Northern States, was in everything, except its name and accidents, consistent with democracy; and, in either case, to dispense with the institution was to introduce no radical change, but only to do away with the name and accidents.[A]

[Footnote A: Here, however, the reader must understand that the infernal system of slave-stealing is left entirely out of the account.]

In Sparta, or in the South, the case was far otherwise. Here, slavery existed in its strict severity; it came into being in connection with material conditions,—that is, in connection with a soil especially favorable to agriculture,—and it maintained its existence by reason of its fitness, its indispensableness, to certain social conditions; it could not, therefore, be changed or annulled without running counter both to the inveterate tendencies of Nature and the still more inveterate tendencies of habit. This difference between the two estates of slavery is evident also from the fact, that, while, in the one case, the law would admit of no emancipation, in the other, the emancipation was effected legally, either in the lump, as in New England, or by instalments, as in Athens; and in the latter State we must remember that the process was rendered the more easy and natural by the fact that the slaves were, in the first instance, generally prisoners taken in war, and not unfrequently stood upon the same social level, before their capture, with their captors, while in Sparta the slaves were taken as a subject race, and held as inferiors.