A message was at once sent to "the Glades," where Mr. Lewis had gone, and where he was detained, as we had supposed, by the storm. Before he reached the house, however, all necessary arrangements were completed for removing any associations of suffering. No confusion remained; the room was gently darkened, and the bodies, robed in white, lay in such peaceful silence as soothes and quiets the mourner.
As the carriage drew up to the door, we both hastened to meet Mr. Lewis, to take him by the hand, and to lead him, by our evident sympathy, to accept his terrible affliction with something like composure. In our entire uncertainty as to his feelings, we could only weep silently, and hold his hands, which were as cold as death.
He looked surprised a little at seeing us, but otherwise his face was like stone. His eyes,—they, too, looked stony, and as if all the expression and life were turned inward. Outwardly, there seemed hardly consciousness. He sat down between us, while we related all the particulars of the accident, which he seemed greedy to hear,—turning, as one ceased, to the other, with an eager, hungry look, most painful to witness. He made us describe, repeatedly, our last glimpse of the unconscious victims, and then, pressing our hands with a vice-cold grip, said, in a dry whisper,—
"Where are they?"
We led him to the door. He went in, and we softly closed it after him. As we went up-stairs to our own room we heard deep groans of anguish. We knew that his heart could not relieve itself by tears. My husband read the "prayer for persons in great affliction," and then we sat silently looking out on the peaceful sea. In the great stillness of the house, we heard the calm wave plash up on the smiling sands, and watched the silver specks in the distance as they hovered over the blue sea. So soft, so still, it had been the day before,—and where we now saw the placid wave we had seen it then. Yet there had two lives gone out, as suddenly as one quenches a lamp.
Thinking, but not speaking, we waited. The report of a pistol in the house struck us to the heart. I believe we felt sure, both of us, of what it must be. He had loved her so much! And now we were sure, that in the tension of his grief, reason had given way. When we saw them next, there were three where two had been, in the marble calm of death.
THE FORMATION OF GLACIERS.
The long summer was over. For ages a tropical climate had prevailed over a great part of the earth, and animals whose home is now beneath the Equator roamed over the world from the far South to the very borders of the Arctics. The gigantic quadrupeds, the Mastodons, Elephants, Tigers, Lions, Hyenas, Bears, whose remains are found in Europe from its southern promontories to the northernmost limits of Siberia and Scandinavia, and in America from the Southern States to Greenland and the Melville Islands, may indeed be said to have possessed the earth in those days. But their reign was over. A sudden intense winter, that was also to last for ages, fell upon our globe; it spread over the very countries where these tropical animals had their homes, and so suddenly did it come upon them that they were embalmed beneath masses of snow and ice, without time even for the decay which follows death. The Elephant whose story was told at length in the preceding article was by no means a solitary specimen; upon further investigation it was found that the disinterment of these large tropical animals in Northern Russia and Asia was no unusual occurrence. Indeed, their frequent discoveries of this kind had given rise among the ignorant inhabitants to the singular superstition already alluded to, that gigantic moles lived under the earth, which crumbled away and turned to dust as soon as they came to the upper air. This tradition, no doubt, arose from the fact, that, when in digging they came upon the bodies of these animals, they often found them perfectly preserved under the frozen ground, but the moment they were exposed to heat and light they decayed and fell to pieces at once. Admiral Wrangel, whose Arctic explorations have been so valuable to science, tells us that the remains of these animals are heaped up in such quantities in certain parts of Siberia that he and his men climbed over ridges and mounds consisting entirely of the bones of Elephants, Rhinoceroses, etc. From these facts it would seem that they roamed over all these northern regions in troops as large and numerous as the Buffalo herds that wander over our Western prairies now. We are indebted to Russian naturalists, and especially to Rathke, for the most minute investigations of these remains, in which even the texture of the hair, the skin, and flesh has been subjected by him to microscopic examination as accurate as if made upon any living animal.
We have as yet no clue to the source of this great and sudden change of climate. Various suggestions have been made,—among others, that formerly the inclination of the earth's axis was greater, or that a submersion of the continents under water might have produced a decided increase of cold; but none of these explanations are satisfactory, and science has yet to find any cause which accounts for all the phenomena connected with it. It seems, however, unquestionable that since the opening of the Tertiary age a cosmic summer and winter have succeeded each other, during which a Tropical heat and an Arctic cold have alternately prevailed over a great portion of the globe. In the so-called drift (a superficial deposit subsequent to the Tertiaries, of the origin of which I shall speak presently) there are found far to the south of their present abode the remains of animals whose home now is in the Arctics or the coldest parts of the Temperate Zones. Among them are the Musk-Ox, the Reindeer, the Walrus, the Seal, and many kinds of Shells characteristic of the Arctic regions. The northernmost part of Norway and Sweden is at this day the southern limit of the Reindeer in Europe; but their fossil remains are found in large quantities in the drift about the neighborhood of Paris, where their presence would, of course, indicate a climate similar to the one now prevailing in Northern Scandinavia. Side by side with the remains of the Reindeer are found those of the European Marmot, whose present home is in the mountains, about six thousand feet above the level of the sea. The occurrence of these animals in the superficial deposits of the plains of Central Europe, one of which is now confined to the high North, and the other to mountain-heights, certainly indicates an entire change of climatic conditions since the time of their existence. European Shells now confined to the Northern Ocean are found as fossils in Italy,—showing, that, while the present Arctic climate prevailed in the Temperate Zone, that of the Temperate Zone extended much farther south to the regions we now call sub-tropical. In America there is abundant evidence of the same kind; throughout the recent marine deposits of the Temperate Zone, covering the low lands above tide-water on this continent, are found fossil Shells whose present home is on the shores of Greenland. It is not only in the Northern hemisphere that these remains occur, but in Africa and in South America, wherever there has been an opportunity for investigation, the drift is found to contain the traces of animals whose presence indicates a climate many degree colder than that now prevailing there.