Langdon Smith

“ Stanza X. The engravings of animals upon bone or ivory by prehistoric man mark the earliest human expression of the beautiful in art for art’s sake, and appear to be the first step in evolution from savagery.
Stanza XII. Kimmeridge clay, the lowest series of the Upper Oolitic, is dark bluish gray, shaly clay which is sometimes bituminous and occasionally, as at Kimmeridge in the Isle of Purbeck, is so rich in bituminous matter as to be used as fuel.
Beneath the cretaceous rocks in Southeast England a fresh-water formation called the Wealden is found interlaced between two marine formations. ”

“ Stanza IX. The gregarious instinct, while of the greatest social importance in its simplest form, implies none of the higher qualities of mind, neither sympathy nor capacity for mutual aid. It seems generally called in play in connection with some other instinct, rendering complete satisfaction of its impulse impossible until we are surrounded by others who share our emotions. Here the man of the stone age calls his kith and kin more from an instinct of self-assertion and elation than from any more developed social sympathy. ”

“ Croaking and blind, with our three-clawed feet,
Writing a language dumb,
With never a spark in the empty dark
To hint at a life to come. ”

“ For we lived by blood and the right of the might
Ere human laws were drawn,
For the age of sin did not begin
Till our brutish tusks were gone. ”

“ The Cambrian is the lowest of the primary strata exhibiting unmistakable organic remains. Darwin states that the progenitors of mankind must have been aquatic in their habit since morphology shows that our lungs consist of a modified swim-bladder which once served as a float.
Stanza II. The Caradoc sandstone, which takes its name from a mountain in Shropshire, consists of shelly sandstone of great thickness containing trilobites and many other fossils. ”

“ O'er many dainty dish,
Let us drink anew to the time when you
Were a tadpole and I was a fish. ”

“ With this stanza the author ceases to trace the developments of life through the early geological formations and lays the scene of the next stanza in the comparatively recent Tertiary period.
Stanza VI. Huxley expresses his belief that even the highest faculties of feeling and of intellect began to germinate in lower forms of life and it is now quite generally conceded that the human soul is just as much a product of evolution as is the body. ”

“ Oh, the price that we pay
For the single mistake!
Oh, the souls that men slay
And the hearts that they break!
Ah! Surely, somewhere,
God, who pities us all,
Will care for the soul
Of Bessie McCall.
In her coffin of pine,
All decently dressed,
With the lights at her head
And the cross at her breast,
With the roses she loved
Scattered over her pall,
Lies all that remains
Of Bessie McCall--
--of Suicide Hall.
--Langdon Smith, in New York American
This work was published before January 1, 1928, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ The great Cave Bear was extinct at the dawn of historic time and is known only from fossils and a single engraving on stone in the prehistoric museum at Faux.
Stanza VIII. The earliest manifestations of human art consisted of the chipping of flint implements. The mammoth, the last survivor of the three species of elephants inhabiting Europe, flourished before and during the Glacial period. Larger than the modern elephant, it had large, curved tusks and a thick coat of hair. ”

“ When you were a tadpole and I was a fish
In the Paleozoic time
And side by side on the sluggish tide
We sprawled through the ooze and slime,
Or skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the depths of the Cambrian fen
My heart was rife with the joy of life,
For I loved you even then. ”

“ Stanza II. Kemi (Black) was the ancient Egyptians’ name for their own country. Aahlu was the paradise of the ancient Egyptian religion where the souls of those who were admitted by Osiris might dwell for three thousand years after which they must return to earth, for another incarnation.
Stanza VI. Roman Mars is, of course, a poetic figure for Cleopatra’s warrior lover, Mark Antony.
Stanza VII. Believers in reincarnation teach that in earth lives we gain experience and in the intervening lives on the higher planes we rest and transmute that experience into power for the next earth life. ”

“ Weald clay, Hastings sand and Purbeck beds, or flags of limestone and marl. The Wealden formation is rich in fossils, containing also what appear to be the oldest examples of bird fossils in Great Britain. ”

“ Stanza IV. Neocomian is the name given the lower division of the cretaceous system partly, at least, formed by the wearing down of the pre-existing oolitic rocks. The fresh-water formations of this period exhibit remains of terrestrial reptiles and the trunks and leaves of land plants. ”

“ Coryphodon. A fossil mammal somewhat resembling the hippopotamus.
Loxolophodon. An extinct mammal with obliquely crested molars.
Mastodon. An extinct elephant larger but similar in form to existing species. ”