The First Days of Man. Kummer Frederic Arnold
valleys, and after a very long time, all these bits of rock-dust which Rain had washed down from the hills formed great wide beds of mud covering the rocky surface of the plains many feet deep.
At the same time that Rain was washing the soft rock down into the valleys to form mud, he also carried down many bits of harder rock, yellow and white, and other colours, like glass. These rocks would not form mud, because they were too hard, but instead they became smooth round pebbles of all sizes, with millions of tiny bits, called sand, and the rivers carried them down to the ocean, and made beautiful clean beaches, as you can see whenever you go to the seashore. And Rain washed many other things out of the rocks and carried them down into the ocean, such as salt. There are great beds of rock-salt all over the Earth, and Rain melted them, and washed the salt into the ocean, and that is why the ocean is salt.
When Mother Nature, who was very busy, came to look at the Earth she smiled, because it pleased her.
"You have done very well, Cold and Rain," she said. "All the rivers and lakes and oceans are full of nice warm water, and all the valleys and plains are covered with soft warm mud, ready for things to grow in. I think I had better speak to the Sun."
So Mother Nature said to the Sun:
"Sun, the Earth is ready for you now. Please make something grow." Then she went away to look after some other worlds she was fixing up.
The Sun looked down at the Earth and smiled as he saw the nice rich beds of mud, and the great wide Ocean.
"Are you ready, Ocean?" he asked.
"Yes," said the Ocean. "I am warm and salt and full of Rain."
"Good. We shall need plenty of Rain," said the Sun. Then he turned to the Air.
"Are you moist and warm, Air?" he asked. "Yes," said the Air. "I am very moist and warm."
"Good," said the Sun. Then he turned to the beds of mud.
"Mud," he said, "you are ugly and black, but you are also full of nice rich chemicals and all sorts of substances we need to make things grow. With the help of Air, and Rain, I am going to cover you with a beautiful carpet of green, so that you will not be ugly any longer."
So the Sun turned his blazing rays on the soft mud and warmed it, and then a wonderful thing happened. Tiny living things, like plants, formed out of the chemicals in the Mud and the Water, and the Air, began to spring up, just as God had long ago planned. They were very small and weak at first, but after a while they grew stronger and stronger, until they had spread all over the Earth, wherever there was mud or dirt for them to grow in. And later on, because the Air was so moist and warm, the way it is in the tropics, and because the Sun was so hot, and there was plenty of Rain, the plants on the Earth grew to be very large and strong. There were ferns, like the little ones we see in flower-pots, as big as trees, and all sorts of tall, rank grasses, and vines, even at the North and South Poles, for in those days, before the Earth had cooled down the way it has now, the Poles were warm, too.
For hundreds and hundreds of thousands of years these great ferns and other plants grew, and died, and fell back into the mud, and as they rotted they made more earth, for other plants to grow in, so that the earth-covering on top of the rocks grew thicker and thicker. In some places the leaves and trunks of these fern-trees got mashed down on each other in thick layers, and became harder and harder, until they turned to coal. Often, in coal mines, the miners will break open a lump of coal and find printed in its surface the exact pattern of the leaf of one of these great fern-trees, just as it fell, millions of years ago.
While all this was going on, Mother Nature, having a little time to spare, came back to take a look at the Earth. It was one of the smallest worlds she had to look after, so she could not give it all her time.
"It is doing very nicely indeed," she said to the Sun. "In eight or ten million years it may be ready for Man. But we must have some fish and other things first. Won't you please attend to it for me, Sun? I am very busy just now looking after some new-born stars in the Milky Way."
"Certainly," said the Sun. "I will attend to it at once." So he turned to the Ocean.
"Ocean," he said, "wouldn't you like to have some fish swimming about in you?"
"Indeed I should," said the Ocean. "I am very big, and I have plenty of room for all the fish you can make."
"Good," said the Sun. "Do you see those tiny spongy growths along the edge of the mud – those funny little things like jelly-fish. I have noticed that some of them haven't quite made up their minds yet whether to be plants, or fish. They have begun to wriggle and squirm about in the mud, and a plant, you know, is supposed to take root and stay in one place. Don't you think we ought to help them to make up their minds?"
"Yes," said the Ocean. "What do you want me to do?"
"Well, suppose you gently wash them loose from the shore, and let them drift for a while in your nice warm salt water. Maybe they will get to like it."
"I'll try it," said the Ocean.
So he did, and after a time the tiny creatures got to like the water so much that they lived in it all the time, instead of just squirming about in the mud. And as thousands of years went by, some of them grew little shell-houses to live in, and some of them fastened themselves to rocks, like oysters, and waited for food to drift right into their mouths, but others grew fins and tails, so that they could swim about in search of something to eat. It took a very long time of course, but after a while, as they grew and grew, and changed and changed, the Ocean came to be full of all sorts of fish, large and small. And the Ocean was very proud of them.
CHAPTER II
THE FISH THAT GOT STUCK IN THE MUD
When Mother Nature came back to take a look at things she was delighted to see how well they were going.
"The trees and plants and grass are doing nicely," she said, "and so are the fish. Now we must get some animals on land, and you, Ocean, must attend to it for me."
"What can I do?" the Ocean asked. "I haven't any animals to put on the land."
"Then you must put some fish there, and I will see that they are turned into animals."
"But fish can't live on the land," said the Ocean. "They haven't any lungs to breathe air with. They can only breathe in the water."
"I know that," said Mother Nature, smiling. "You just do as I tell you, and leave the rest to me."
"What do you want me to do?" asked the Ocean.
"Tell the Wind to blow a great storm, and wash some of your fish up into the salt marshes. And after that, have your waves build a wall of sand along the edge of the marshes, so that the fish and the water you have washed in cannot get out again."
"I will do it," said the Ocean, "but I do not see any sense in it."
"You will, when I have finished," Mother Nature said.
So the Ocean spoke to the Wind, and told him to blow his hardest, and the Wind howled and shrieked with joy and drove the waves before him, and they danced and rolled up into the great wide marshes and carried thousands and thousands of fish with them. Then other waves came, carrying sand, and with the sand they built a wall all along the edge of the marshes, so that the water in the marshes could not get out again, but stayed there, spread out like a great shallow inland sea.
Then Mother Nature said to the Sun:
"Sun, dry up the marshes, and see what happens."
So the Sun blazed down on the marshes and began to dry them up. It took him thousands of years to do it, for they were very large, but he did not mind that, for he had nothing to do but shine.
The fish that had been carried into the marshes had a great time, at first, swimming about in the shallow water quite as much at home as they had been in the Ocean. But after a while, as the marshes began to dry up, some of the fish got caught in the mud on the edges, and they couldn't breathe, with their heads out of water, so they flopped their fins in the mud, and tried to breathe the air, and at last, by pushing with their fins, they managed to get back into the deeper water again. Every time this happened, their fins got a little