The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 13, 1896, Page 18

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1896. E KLAPPERMAN--The Tale of Old ] % Alike to the Bitter Winds That Sweep Down From the an Stock, a Large Mafi, Inured. Zuyder Zee and to the Morning Gapes of the Dutch Villagers. “De’ Klapperman” climbed out of his bed in the wall without disturbing “Cornaylia,” his wife. Cornelia lay like a log of wood and snored like the creaking of the windmill on a blustering day. It was not yet 3 o'clock in the morning. It was summer, but the dark green wooden blinds were closed and the little ToOm Was a black hole except where the door into the inner room, where tbe chiidren slept, stood opens There were seven children, including Jln,whn(wus an idiot and would never count, except in the churchyard over at Ridderkerk. Jan Stock had been ‘‘de Klapperman' for twenty-two years, and had inherited his duties, his labors and his misfortunes from his father. He was a tall man with large joints; his face, from exposure to the bitterest cold, to the horrors of the winds that sweep down over the fla_l country from the Zuyder Zee, was tanned as brown as the old leather waistcoat he wore for warmth. The hollows of his eyes, under his hard, bulging fore- head, seemed to have béen scooped out with a spoon; the skin was drawn over his great cheekbones, that were like brown doorknobs; bhis mouth was a straignt, dark-brown line in an expanse of shaven green lip and cheek and chin. The whole face was dark except for the straight yellow hair and the thatch of stiff eyebrows, bleached almost white, and his eyes, which were the color of the sea on a misty day, so pale and cold and blue. He wore a blouse faded into streaks of gray by frequent washing and patched with vivid new material in absolute independence of Biblical warnings. His coat and his trousers were of an indefinite brownish green, with a broad rim around the frayed ankles where he had plowed through the winter mud and slush. He moved around like a cat, in his coarse stockings, over the cold flags. He stumbled over the brass milkcan at the side of the stove and stood stitl. Frau Cornelia had a tongue that was soarp as ice. The odors of flax and earth and leather and smoke combined however to make the atmosphere heavy, and the good wile slept and the seven children did not stir. g Hedrew a long breath as he picked up his great kilumpen at the door and clattered down the stone-paved street with a stern disregard for the slumberers of the littie village. Was he not paid to rouse them at any time between 1 o'clock and 6? No one rose later than that; not even Meffrouw Vaunderloom, who hited all the men and women who worked in the fields or at the flax-picking in the great barns, and who paid them so munificently—75 Dutch cents a day for the married men and women and 50 cents for the boys and girls, whether they were 20 or 60 years old. The most notoriously lazy people on the whole riverside were the chil- dren and wife of the Klapperman himself. Meffrouw Cornelia seldom rose before 5, and the children were sometimes allowed to sleep till the sweepings and scourings and scoldings of the mother woke them of their own accord. Kiapperman passed out into the road. At this hour the moonlight and the daylight straggled for supremacy; the trees marched shivering like gray ghosts into a blur of mist and in the river their pale reflec- tions trembled and shook. Phantom houses huddled together, threatened by a strange skeleton windmjll with its giant arms bouna for the night, silent and motionless. The stillness was something to be felt in all the tields, drowned in silver mist. Nota living creatare moved. The river alone made a little indefinite noise in the rushes and the sound of his wooden shoes waked the echoes. “Rat-a-plan” went the brass knocker against the closed wooden shut- ters, and & long, harsh call brought the stupefied sleeper to the realiza- tion of a new day of life and labor. The Klapperman had no eyes for the wonderfal changes of the dawn; even when the day broke over the fresh, green earth and dazzled the little sioots and emphasized the quaintness of the ancient houses under their heavy moss-grown roofs, he would hardiy have been able to see their pic- turesque possibilities. What he did see was a number of dwellings, grimly secured against the long winter and the cruel cold. His thoughts, that moved slowly and sluggishly as canal-boats, ran this wise: Here lives Pieter Bloomers—rat-a-plan—he is deaf and his wife is bed- ridden and bis only son was washed from his boat on his last trip from Zeeland, with the flax to be worked in the winter. All this was no reason why they should not pay him, Jan Stock, for three weeks their paltry two cents a week for waking them. The old man could still do a day's work! Rat-a-plan, rat-a-plan, rat-a-plan!!! Thisis for Hendrick Steen, who will come to the field hours too late, with his nose red and his bands shake ing and his watery eyes bleared with drink. He is a victim of the tempta- tions of the flowing vowlin the little black-faced, red-eyed tavern, and s o LG 4 Ll WA uid P " ) a0 - 7T\ =fok =R / Touua SPreaos swe Linen N THE GRASS That Steals Vitality And Robs the Present Of Its Joys and Its Peace There is probably nothing in human life which causes us greater sstonishment when we pause to reflect upon it than the amount of experi- ence which we undergo in imagination only. The hopes that were never realized, the anticipations that were never tulfilied, the fears that no sub- sequent event ever justified—how much of experience has been made up of these things! And if we add to vurely imaginary joys and sorrows all those events whose nature we have at the time misinterpreted because of the coloring given them by a deluded fancy, we are likely to conclude that very much of this life which we take in all seriousness, laughing and weeping by turns over its gay and its sorrowful adventures, is no more real than are the scenes of a drama enacted upon the stage. It is not the playing of a role, to be sure, because we are really the characters we por- tray, but as we mistake the conditions in which we are involved, the per- formance is equaliy fictitious, * Indeed, life might be callled a “Comedy of Errors” were it not so serious, and Shakespeare was right when he exclaimed : All the world’s stage, And all the men and women merely players. But if we consider that experience is, after ail, a matter of consclous- ness, we shall find this condition of affairs less surprising. It is not events alone that make animpression upon the mind, but the quality of nature that interprets them as good or evil. From the same event one wiil extract joy while another gets only bitterest grief, ail depending upon its degree of acceptavility, Moreover, the mind can create its own facts, as bas already been seen. Orientai thought, that has delved into the mysteries of mind to an ex. tent which the West can hardly credit, suggests in relation to its experi- ences some very interesting ideas. In its view the real man 18 potthe physical self, but the soul, or thinker, who dwells within the body, using itas an instrument for action and experience in a material realm. The sowl is the experiencer. It is also the creator and evolver of its physical conditions, all of which are the final outgrowth of its thought. For this reason man is held to be accountable for his thoughts, inasmuch as they produce inevitable resuits, Thinking is a process which may be con- trolled. As a rational man holds his emotionas nature in check, so shouid a wise man restrain his unruly thoughts. Remembering that it is creative, he should make thought serve bis highest unfoldment, by directing. it into proper channels and by holding it firmly in control. On the other hand the thinker need not be a siave to vagrant impressions, 1f tkis be true, and a search into our own nature reveals its reasonable. ness, it is not necessary to be the prey of all those mental emotions which spends his nights and his wife’s earnings and the marriage portions of his daugnters in riotous living. Rav-a-plan! This is for Metfrouw Vanhuysen, who buried her hus- band last spring and who is already shamelessly encouraging tne advances of Halbert Herrenkam, who owns a canal-boat and two dogs for his dog- cart, and who sells pots and pans in all the villages between Dort and Rot- terdam. And Halbert has already survived two wives and has married children. The world isa wicked place! Rat-a-plan! This is for the miserly son of the old Meffrouw Kock, who lived forty years on the charity of the Kerk, whining about her mis. ery and her abject want; and that the church owed her more than such a mere pittance, and she died with 220 zulden in coppers and small silver coin sewed into the pillow upon which her gray and wrinkled old head had rested for so many nights. The son bade fair to equal the mother, the wife looked half starved and the children were the most vicious and unkempt of all the little rascals within a mile. And that was saying ey- erything that could be said. Jan Stock did not regard the frugality of Meffrouw Kock in an unchar- itable spirit; his winiry eyes rested on the little housefront with the shin- ing black door, with something akin to admiration. Rat-a-plan! Rat-a-plan! Rat-a-plan! Poor Bastiantje has brought nine children into the world and mine times has the solemn “tidings-bearer” gone the rounds of the village, with the long white streamers in his battered silk bat and the loose white gloves on his dejected old hands. Only last week he had to inform the family and friends of the sad fact that Bastiantje’s last little Meisje had gone to join her brothers and sistersin the chucchyard at Ridderskerk. Bastiantje had no time for grief. For one day she sat at the little white- curtained hole in the window staring at the chila in her clean irock, with her hair smoothed and her face like the waxen image in the dreadful Catholic church. Bastiantje has an old mother to support and her husband is a good- for-naught, so she must be aroused like the rest to take her place in the fields, to bring her worn face, that is stupid with grief, out of the darkness of her bed in the wall, where she could at least forget in the sleep of mortal fatigue. 8 Rat-a-plan! This is for poor Tonia of the windmill, who has neither 80 often beclond intelligzence. It is evident that a mind which can dismiss likes and dislikes from its consideration of a question will ba better fitted to get at the truth than jt otherwise could. Facts are strangely altered when seen through the glow of tondness or the black shadow of fear. The clear light of serenity is needed to show them as they are. Such reflections are aroused by the prevalent fear ofills that may never afflict us and that are merely intensified by anxiety if they do come. Nobody wishes to multiply his trouples. Without help they wiil come plentifully. And yet It is certain that we do suffer ills continuaily that could easily be dispensed with by judicious thinking. We evolve shadows and cling to them. We fear evils and suffer them like realities. And all the time we are laboring to make trouble for ourselves the cr tive thought is bringing it nearer. Unconciously we are even arranging the Cetails, for not even our woes evolve at haphazard but take on tte forms we have mentally preparea for them. Much has been made of thil fact by a certain school of healers who attribute all disease to erroneous thought. But intelligent physicians bave always admitted the influence of mental states upon the body, and are aware that the emotions in particular greatly influence its health. That sudden grief may cause death is undeniable. Fear, too, is a prolitic cause of sickness. This has often been remarked in epidemics of swift disease, such as cholera, where it may well be that the effect of fear in lowering vitality may prepare suitable conditions for an atiack. “Fear,” said a great occultist, “'is the same thing as frigidity on the earth, and always proceeds by the process of freezing.” Surely, then, we have good reason to exercise control over this injurious eraotion, and to culiivate a mental courage which will enable us to meet even serious illness with equanimity, Another disease that has caused untold agonies of fear is hydrophobia. And yet it has been recently declared on high medical anthority that ‘‘there i3 no such specific malaay.” It has been also said that “‘there is upon record a great mass of testimony from physicians asserting the ex- treme rarity of hydrophobia even in the doe, while many medical men of wide experience are ot the opinion that ifit develop in human beings at all it is only on extremely rare occasions.” And yet millions suffer annualiy from fear of an attack! Equally unwise is the constant dread of fire that haunts others, Every reasonabie precaution should of course be taken to avoid disaste. , as nothing is more ruinous; but care can as well be given in a cheerful as in an anxious epirit. If, in spite of our care, we are burnt out the occus rence will cause us trouble enough. We shall need courage and cheerful- ness to meet our misfortune, while the possession of faith in the general beneficence of overruling powers wiil enable us the more swiftly to rally from it. To be burnt outin fancy athousand times previously would, on the other hand, increase the sense of discouragement, if it did not make it habitual. Quite different and yet not less injurious is the fear of poverty., To guard against want by industry and forethought is doubtless wise, and to suffer when pinched by dire need isinevitable. But neither wise nor inev- itable is doubt of the iuture provided we do our part. Sickness mby unfit us for labor, our business projects may fail, hard times may overwhelm us, a general calamity may devastate the land. Any or all of these things may be counted among future possibilities. Butin health to dread sick- ness, in success to fear failure, in comfort to anticipate distress is a kind of folly to which rational beings should become superior., In an Eastern city there dwelt, some years ago, a very wealthy man. Success had crowned his business ventures. There were no wants and but few fancies that his multiple miliions could not abundantly satisfy. Yat this man lived in constant fear of poverty. He never could quite believe in his own goud fortune. So closely did he cling to the idea of want that he finally expected to die in the poorhouse. It was the one shadow that lay across his path. But he died in a tuxurious home, denied neither care nor comfort, and doubtless rests now in a well-tended lot with'a monument to mark his grave, In fine, there is no calamity which fear is able to avert. Its effect is always mischievous. Although we may not be able to dismiss 1t in times of peril there 1s certainly reason to avoid it in anticipation. It is far bet- ter to gratefully use the gifts bestowed upon us, while we turdily resolve to be so independent of them that when misfortune comes it shall find us nobly brave. MEroie M. Trinps, . OBBERTIN’S Idea of Degeneracy Caricatured by Rupert Schmid. The sculptors and some of their friends who paint are highly amused over the seriousness with which Dobbertin’s latest freak, ‘‘Degeneration,” has been taken, and they have talked so frequently about it thata most unearthly face has been fashioned in clay as a caricature. It has even gone further than this, for they have taken photographs of the ideal and distributed the pictures as genuine prints of the real; but which is the ideal and which the real must be determined by the imagination. The caricature is now in the possession of Joe Kruft, the Bohemians' friend, and artists have dubbed it “Joe’s Dream”—an unfriendly reflection on his digestion. How it came into Joe’s place, or whoever conceived and executed such a piece of diabolism, nobody will tell; but it bears the ear- marks of Sculptor Schmid’s genius; and, indeed, there is littls dount that he is responsible for the face. Bome artists insist that the caricature is in the interest of art, but others have other views which they keep to them- selves. Anyhow, it is a clear case of one sculptor making fun of another, and that in & most rigorous and cutting wanner. father nor mother, but who supports four little brothers and sisters as cheerfully as possible. She is but 17, is Tonia, and the prettiest and poorest girl in the village. Bhe works the hardest and wears the stiffest white caps. There is a tale that she was ‘‘versproken,’” promised to the Timmerman, but that wily carpenter had gone over to another village where there were richer girls, % Tonia helped wash the linen and went out in the early morning to spread it on the grass at the riverside and managed the affuirs of the great windmill, and cooked for and scolded and washed and tended the children and sang: ©Op bergen en In dalen En overal is Goi! If she grieved she bore it silently. Morning and evening you could bear, if you passed the windmill, her young voice singing: Onilaas en hoog verheven, Ja, overal 1s God! Bo the Klapperman goes from door to door, unmoved by the tragedies that play behind the green shutters, Sometimes he starts in at 1in the morning, when the fishermen must be called. They have a weary distance to go before their great red-sailed boats pass, like great birds, down the canals to the sea. It was better in the dark ‘days, thinks the Klapperman. When bis fatber lived Le was also paid to go down the streets at night to ‘‘klapp” the people into bed with a sounding-board and a big brass klapper. “Tien is the hour,” he would shout, *‘the hour is tien,” after which no tavern dared wink a malevolent red eye. The sun rises in summer ana the glory ot the morning breaks—or in winter the hard snow crunches under his wooden shoes and the icicles drop from the shutters he rattles. The unfortunates gasp in the compara- tive warmth of their stuffy beds and hoist themselves to the ground with a shudder. Winter and summer are alike to the Kiapperman, who goes, morning after morning, through the misty dawn, a melancholy tigure like a Dutch anticipation of the Judgment Day, and an avenging angel rousing the dead from their last sleep. Vax Dyck Browr. Holland, August, 1896, 3%, ALIFORNIA Is Said to Be a Part of the Ancient Continent of Lemuria, and the enter of a Civilization That Antedates the Fabled Continent of Atlantis by Thousands of Years. California is a fragment of the ancient continent of Lemuria. Such is the startling fact as revealed by those who know, fortified by scientific data and historical research. There is much clashing of opinions and re- adjust ment of beliel among scientific minds as to the age of this our globe, the views of eminent scientists varying as much as millions of years. However this may be there is reason to believe that man as he now appears in a physical body has existed upon the earth for 18,000,000 years. This being so, then the con tinent upon which bumanity lived and breathed is even older. Hence we may catch some idea of the immense antiquity of this glorions country of ours, California. In fact, California was a bigh moun tainous country with fertile valleys away back in the ages when the waves of the sea rolled over the remainder of the United Srates. From this the conclusion must not be drawn that the remainder of America is not also of venerable antiquity, pecause the reverse isthe truth. Still, California from her mountain peaks has patiently seen, with ever watchful eye, theland to the east of her gradually rise, shaking the salt sea from her back, while the west and south volcanic action has shaken the earth into fragments, until it has become a prey to the devouring water. leaving the present State, as the only monument in this part oi the country, to testify to the ancient grandeur of the land and the high civii- ization to which it gave birtn, Beneath the soil of California is hidden vast wealth, much greater indeed than any of her rich mines have ever yet produced, while beneath the foundations of her cities, more especially of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, lie buried the remainsof minty cities. It would not be wise, even if we knew the exact location of this deeply hidden treasure, to point out its probable locality. Such is the natural cupidity of mankind that only strife and possibly bloodshed could follow the public possession of such knowledge, especially at this stage of our evolution, when selfishness and greed are too ofien the mainsprings of human action. No harm can be done, however, in reciting the facts, as we are on the verge of important discoveries, it is said, which will estab- lish the trutn of these statements beyond the shadow of a doubt. For the benefit of those who do not know, or have forgotten, it may be well to recall some facts about the gigantic continent of Lemuria, which science says was the cradle of mankind, and now sleaps beneath the bosom of the Indian Ocean. Itis to Mr. P. L. Sclater that the honor is due for the name, if not the idea of Lemuria, but he has had eminent support in the person of Harkel, who dwells at great length upon Lemurig in his “Pedigree of Man.” Even Mr. A. R. Wallace, the great naturalist, while opposed to the continent as laid down by Sclater, does not seem to reject the idea. Since the days when the theory was first promulgated, however, many have been the scientists, great and small, who have thought much and written more upopn the subject, with the result that “Lemuria’ seems Schmid’s Caricature of Dobbertin’s “Degeneracy.” 1o be an established fact in the minds of men over the world. The exact location, or rather the\area covered by this Titanic land, however, seems yet'to be a bone of contention. There are many good reasons to believe, however, that at one time Lemuria covered the area now washed by the Pucific, Atlantic and Indian oceéhns. To be more exact, the continent extended from the foot of the Himalayas south across what is known to us as Southern India, Ceylon and Sumatra, embracing on its way as we g0 south Madagascar on its right hand and Australia and Tasmania on its left, running to within a few degrees of the Antarctic circle. Thence it extended far into the Pacific Ocean. Easter Isle and the other islands sown hither and thither on the face of the Pacific, to- gether with a large part of California, are remnants of this once mighty land. North of California Lemuria may have touched the coast line of North America. From the south the continent extended in the shape of a horseshoe past Madagascar, round South Africa (then a mere fragmeut in the process of formation), through the Atlantic, up to Norway. “The great ;flglilh freshwater deposit called the Wealden, which every geolo- glst regards as the mouth of a former great river, is the bed of the main stream which drained northern Lemuria in the secondary age.” In those days there was neither Africa nor the Americas, still less Europe, all these slumbering yet on the floor of the ocean. Nor was there much of the present Asia, for the cis-Himalayan regions were covered with seas, be- yond which were Greenland, Eastern and Weslern Siberia, which be- longed to a yet oider continent. In the days of Lemuria Mount Atlas was an inaccessible island peak, three times as high as it is now, its peakslostin clouds and perpetual snows. Later new lana arose around it—the “Ante- diluvian Atlantis'’; still later the present continent of Africa, which facts bave given rise to the ancient myth of Atlas carrying the world upon his shoulders. It may be well for a clear and fuller understanding of the matter to explain that according to great minds, both in the east and the west, the surface of the earth has changed almost completely five different times since the land first separated from the waters. It has been the belief of science and the dream of explorers for many years that beyond the polar seas, at the very Arctic circle, there is a sea, ‘free from ice and full of whales,” surrounding a continent which is evergreen. In some old books of ancient wisdom the same statements are found, the land so situated being cailed the *‘unperishable” or ‘“sacred land.”” Some, indeed, even make the statement that the first mankind, the rulers of the sphere, were “precipitated’’ upon this Eden, which at that time enjoyed a tropical or semi-tropical climate. Whether this be a flight of fancy or the most pro- found truth, it 1s undeniable that science has good reasons to believe in the existence of polar land of far greater age even than Calif ornia. Just as an astronomer can, by mathematics and known physical laws, predict the presence of a planet or other heavenly body at a certain place in space when such body is invisible to the naked eye or even to the telescope, 80 do scientists gésert the presence of land at the north pole, although in our time no man has succeeded in reaching that blessed abode and returned to tell the tale. In fact no round-trip tickets are yet sold. But brushing all humor aside and viewing the matter in the light ot truth we find in ancient books and older traditions, which are history in fact, often more reliable than so-called history, clear accounts of this land now buried, or rather protected from intrusion by barriers of snowand ice. Away, way back in the ages, eons upon eons of years ago, when the earth was in its infancy, the pole or axis of the earth is said to have lain n the plane of its orbit about the sun, not being inclined to the eclintic as it is now. This change in the inclination of the earth’s axis, or a real shifting of the axis, as is asserted by some, together with aslowing of the revolution of the earth, has caused radical changes in climate to sweep over the earth several times, so ihat lands now strangers to ica were then covered with its crystals, and vice versa, regions now subjected by the frost king then basked in the rays of a tropical sun. Astime wenton land rose from the water south of this sacred land, or the first continent, which became known as the ‘‘Hyperborean,” or second continent. This latter continent stretched southward and westward from the Arctic circle, and embraced what is now known as Northern Asia. Greenland isa remnant of this “iand of the gods,” as the Greeks called it, saying that “the nocturnal shadows never fall upon it.”” It isgu:ssed¢by some that Ireland is also an heirloom of this wonderful land, but the remainder of Great Britain is not. This was a real, bona-fide continent, although some uncharitable and skeptical persons have been so foolish as to call the statement “‘poetized fiction.” But let it pass; the time came when this continent broke into pieces and wassubmereed, the first deluge in the life of Mother Earth. Nextcame the great continent of Lemnria, of which California is a proud daughter. Most of Lemuria was destroyed by fire, earthquakes, fire and lava, and the fragments sank beneath the seas. Some portions of Lemuria, after sinking, were again raised with little harm, as, witness Easter Isle, which was again elevated from the ocean,with its statues and other archaic remains, a witness to the existence and arts of Lemuria. California seems to hav e escaped the general fate of its parent continent. Thousands of years after Lemuria had gone to sleep another, the fourth continent, gradually arose from the Atlantic Ocean. This was the fabled **Atlantis,”” concerning which so much has been sung and written in poetry and in prose, the “Atlantis’* of which Plato has told in an- cient ciassics being an island of this once mountainous continent, concern- ing which he had received much information from learned Egyptian priests through Solon or by direct word of mouth. A large part of the United States, as well as some sections in South America, are remains of the Atlantic continent, as is attested by the wonderful mounds, temples, pyramids and other relics, of which more ruay be said later on. The fifth continent is the land now on the surface, which we are in the habit of dividing into four or five so-called continents. Of course, from what has been said, it is evident that, besides the land composing the fifth continent, there are now on the globe small fragments of the older continents, joined with the newer lands in such a way as to be almost indistinguishable. It may be guessed from the forezoing that continents are born, ma- ture, grow old and die, passing through the seven stages, or ages. which Shakespeare has made immortal, just as do men. Further, it will be seen that the lands perish alternately by fire and water. And itis the fate of our fifth continent to die by nieans of fire, as did Lemuria ages ago, So 1t will be seen that ih re is really some foundation for the old statement that the wicked will perish by fire and brimstone. However, it need cause us no uneasiness of mind, as many thousands of years must elapse before our present continent will pass to its grave or rather cremation. Still it may be true that during tha next year or so we may be startied by unusual commotiori among the elements, both above and below the crust of the earth. . Itseemsto be true that such natural convulsions and cataciysms mark the periods when one continent ialis and another rises, and appar- ently they occur suddenly. The explosion possibly is sudden, that is the phenomenon is sudden, but it must be remembered that Dame Nature never does anything in a hurry; every move from the forming of a crystal of snowflake to the swinging of a sun in space is done with precision and in an orderly manner. Event succeeds event in & continuous sequence; effect follows cause in an endless chain throgzhout tme, and what is more ages are required to accomplish the result. For instance, it required 150,000 years for the sinking of Atlantis, while 700,000 years elapse¢d between that event and the destruction of " Lemuria. But, then, what matters a few thousand years when the earth must have been revolving 300,000,000 years before she was ready to re- ceive the crowning glory, mankind, 'who has been in possession of his birthright 18.000,000 years—aye, even loager, it we count the time before he had developed the physical case something as it is now. This, then, will set at rest the idea that continents pop up or drop down all at once or in a hurry, without leaving a vestige of themselves. Just as grandfather, father and son (and sometimes a great-grandfather) exist and walk the earth at the.same time, so it is with continents; and gradually the elder sinks from the evident world. In fact, continents grow out of each other in a way, and as different events happen at various times in our time, and in that of our ancastors, so it is with continents, only on a wider grander sqale, commensurate with their maganitude, There is one notable point, however, in this connection, which is, that the first continent, the land at the north pole, preceded all continents and will be in existence when all others have disapoeared. In fact, that it will remain the imperishable land, only to die when the earth itself paszes itself like & flare into the great breath of eternity.