Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/69

 that elapse before the sapphire sea is troubled and broken into crested lines of white sea-foam? Dark streaks seem trembling upwards, striving with and at last conquering the all-powerful sea; for a low ridge of land appears, defying the waters, which must now for all time fret and chafe against its stubborn sides. The brown streaks grow and grow, stretch out towards each other, and link themselves at last into a great ring, prisoning in its midst a disk of conquered water. In vain the bounded sea rebels and tries to break down the wall of earth that holds it fast, and rush back to its mother element. In vain; for it is the day when God said, 'Let there be land!' And the ring grows broad, and strong, and firm, and at last beautiful and green; for the great sun is its friend, and the lake is land-locked,—a hopeless captive. But while the sun looks kindly on the earth, and brings forth from its bosom strange and beautiful forms, it parches the lake cruelly, and the prisoner pines and shrinks, and grows less and less, while the eager land presses greedily about it, and follows its retreat step by step; and at every step which the land gains there is a mark of its victory, a mark that shall endure while the land exists. But the bitterness of the sea cannot be conquered; and when the victory is complete, and the last lapse of water has dried and died beneath the sun, the land bears in its bosom a great basin of sea-salt, which testifies to those who shall come thereafter that the sea once held dominion here. But all is not peaceful yet with the conquering land. Stormy passions shake her being, and in one of these outbursts of