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76 Whether shores Devonian or Silurian beaches—

Tell us thy strange story!

Or has the professor slightly antedated

By some thousand years thy advent on this planet,

Giving thee an air that's somewhat better fitted

For cold-blooded creatures?

Wert thou true spectator of that mighty forest

When above thy head the stately Sigillaria

Reared its columned trunks in that remote and distant

Carboniferous epoch?

Tell us of that scene—the dim and watery woodland

Songless, silent, hushed, with never bird or insect

Veiled with spreading fronds and screened with tall club-mosses,

Lycopodiacea—

When beside thee walked the solemn Plesiosaurus,

And around thee crept the festive Ichthyosaurus,

While from time to time above thee flew and circled

Cheerful Pterodactyls.