Langdon Smith

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”