Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/70

 volcanic fury the great salt basin is torn from its bed and tossed upon its side, and so lies edgewise; for the earth cannot expel, though she may distort, the legacy of the sea. And now the land covers that which she cannot cast out with clean, soft soil, and a wondrous thick carpet of green, from which spring giant trees and fair flowers, making the land full of beauty to him who has come at last to enjoy all that has been so long preparing for him. Man comes, and with him human labor; and the soil is tilled, and cane is planted, and bears sugar for the master of the land. But the hidden salt is still there, and the roots of the cane reach far down into the earth. And when the cane is gathered, and the stubble stands through the long winter, a strange, white bloom is seen upon its broken stumps, which when tasted proves to be, not sweet, but salt. The black laborer learns this fact without question. By the simpler types of man all the wonders of nature are thus accepted, one seeming not more mysterious than another. And the land still keeps her secret.

"A well is needed, and a shaft is sunk. Water comes bubbling to the surface, bringing with it a strange testimony of the forgotten sea; the spring is salt. Time passes; the golden age of peaceful agriculture comes and goes, and Acadia knows the iron age of war. War and want frown down upon the strong young country. The great storehouses of the world are closed, and men are thrown back upon the resources of their own land. There is a salt famine; and a man who thinks more than his neighbors brings the great kettles from his sugar-house and boils