Perseverance, Geology

Evening Round-Up
by William Crosbie Hunter

(Page 8 of 10)

Perseverance

It Is the Last Step in the Race That Counts

Four hundred and twenty-three years ago Christopher Columbus landed on an island which he thought was India.

Chris was mighty happy as he put his foot on good old mother earth; not so much because he had discovered a new way to India, as he thought, but because his foot touched land.

Two days before he landed on San Salvador his crew pitched into him and threatened to throw him in the sea and turn about the ship to Spain.

If Chris had shown the white feather, 1492 would not be the date of the first line in the geography, announcing the "Discovery of America."

Chris had perseverance, the stuff that makes men successful.

He started to find India by sailing westward. He didn't succeed in his purpose, but his determination was rewarded just the same, for he found a new country, and that was worth while.

Before he started he was promised ten per cent of the revenue from any lands he might discover. Just imagine what that would mean today.

Columbus had perseverance and pep, and his unwavering fidelity to his cause brought him success in his efforts.

The world has improved since 1492, but the percentage of men who would keep on like Columbus did has not increased, perhaps.

Columbus sailed with three ships, the largest sixty-six feet long. He steered to the direction of the setting sun. His crew was 120 men. None of them were enthusiastic at the start; all of them disgusted, discouraged and ready to mutiny at the last.

But Christopher kept the ships pointed West, through rain, shine, through drifting breezeless days and through storms. He kept on, and on and on, and he brought home the bacon, which being interpreted means success crowned his efforts.

Perseverance and pep produce prosperity, peace and plenty.

It was the mileage made on October 12th, 1492, that counted.

It is the last step in a race that counts.

It is the last stroke on the nail that counts.

The moral is that many a prize has been lost just when it was ready to be plucked.

Perseverance - patience - pluck - pep - are particularly profitable if pursued until you ring the bell.

Geology

The Earth's Incontestable Pages of Truth

On the wall in the room where I write these lines is a fossil herring which the boys dug up in the Rockies near Frozen Dog, at an altitude of six thousand feet.

The herring is a salt water fish proving that the country around Frozen Dog was at one time under the sea.

A few weeks ago, in the Missouri River bottom near Omaha, some Harvard scientists discovered the remains of three ancient towns, one buried on top of the other.

In the Nile valley in Egypt nine towns, in one location, have been unearthed, each town in a different strata of alluvial deposit.

The ninth or top city is the ancient City of Memphis, once the largest city in the world.

Those cities and the mute eloquence of my fossil herring plainly point out the fact that the world is millions of years old.

Last summer I found some coral on Washington Island, which is off the point of land where Lake Michigan and Green Bay meet. Coral is only formed in salt water.

Geologists tell me that Washington Island and surrounding country plainly shows marks of three distinct glacial periods.

Several times the poles were in the tropical climate, and consequently the tropics or the temperate zones at least were under permanent snow and ice.

The earth changes its axis every few thousand centuries, that we know.

The rains and snows wash the earth to the sea, depositing layers of sand and sediment, which as the ages go by, turn to stone and form permanent pages that man may read in succeeding eras.

During the world's changes, vast surfaces of earth and rock are lifted to mountain heights and other places lowered and the sea covers them.

Thus the habitations of man have been buried, new earth covered them, new towns were built and again the covering process.

Scientists are deciphering the story of the earth and its people. Babylonia and Egypt left records which our learned men can read, but ages and eons before these ancients there were races who could not write even crude picture or hieroglyphic languages, and probably we shall never know much about these very old times.

Around our Mississippi Valley we know of Mound Builders before our Indians. In the Southwest the relics of the cliff dwellers are abundant.

This summer at Salt Lake City I saw seven mummies of fair-haired people that were discovered in Southern Utah.

Near Naples, in digging a well, the workmen found statuary, jewelry and cooking utensils. The Italian government began excavating and they opened up to modern gaze an old city. The town was Pompeii.

People may now walk the streets of old Pompeii as freely as the streets of Kansas City, and the old pavements are likewise worn and torn like the present streets of Kansas City.

The residents of Pompeii had fine plumbing, baths and luxuries.

They had a place called a vomitorium. The old Roman sports were gluttons; they stuffed themselves, then went to the vomitorium and threw up so they could eat more.

Near Pompeii is the ancient buried city of Herculaneum, but it is covered with lava, hard as granite, while Pompeii is covered with ashes.

Our western hemisphere is called the new world, but all parts of the world are equally old.

The Missouri River swelled up and washed out a big cul de sac and bared those three towns near Omaha. We haven't dug much in America but likely in a few years we will discover some old towns equally as ancient as Pompeii.

Verily, this earth of ours has had humans on it for more than the 6,000 years our written records give as its age.

Published by Hunter Service Kansas City, Mo., USA
Copyright 1915 by WM. C. Hunter