Hereupon, a hammock, suspended near the talkers, and filled with what appeared to be a bundle of lace and silken shawls, became agitated, and developed at one end a slender arched foot in an open-work silk stocking and sandal-slipper, and at the other end a dark, youthful, oval face, with glorious eyes and dull black hair. A voice of music asked,—
“What is lacustrine, papa?”
“Oh, so you are awake again, Senorita Miriam?”
“I haven’t been asleep. What is lacustrine?”
“Ask the professor.”
“Lacus, you know, my dear,” said the latter, “means fresh-water indications as against salt.”
“Then how does Great Salt Lake——”
“Oh, for that matter, the whole ocean was fresh originally. Moisture, evaporation, precipitation. Water is a great solvent: earthquakes break the crust, and there you are!”
“Then, before the earthquakes, the Salt Lakes were fresh?” rejoined the hammock.
“There was fresh water west of the Rockies and south of—— Why,” cried the professor, interrupting himself, “when I was in Wyoming and around there, this spring, in what they call the Bad Lands,—cliffs and buttes of indurated yellow clay and sandstone, worn and carved out by floods long before the Aztecs started to move out of Canada,—I saw fossil bones sticking out of the cliffs, the least of which would make the fortune of a museum. That was between the Rockies and the Wahsatch.”