Читать книгу Whirlaway: A Story of the Ages - H. C. F. Morant - Страница 6

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"It was a sunless strand that never bore

The footprints of a man."

—James Stephens.

On reaching the door, Helen read ORDOVICIAN above it, and, on looking at the year-stone, she saw FIFTY MILLION YEARS TO SILURIAN.

"What does that big word OR-OR-D-O-DO ORDO-VICIAN mean?" asked Helen.

"Well!" answered Whirlaway, "the Romans called the Celtic people in Wales Ordovices, so the name is akin to Cambrian. The Ordovician follows the Cambrian in time, and is itself succeeded by the Silurian. The Silures were a Celtic people inhabiting South Wales; that's what the Romans called them. Now then, the three periods—Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian—make up what is sometimes called the Age of the Invertebrates, or backboneless creatures. It's fine to have a backbone, isn't it? But it has taken millions of years to grow one. So be careful of yours, Helen, it's a wonderful legacy from the dim past."

"Backbone," said Helen, straightening herself and addressing her vertebral column, "you're a legacy. Remember that, and stand upright! No wobbling!"

Somehow this thought proved irresistible to Helen—she just had to make a song about it.

Be upright, little backbone!

Be straight as you can be,

Because, my precious backbone,

You are a lega-cee.

She carolled gaily:

You are a lega-cee!

Using the red key, Whirlaway unlocked the door. When they pushed it open they found that the temperature, though still on the cool side, was much better, and the air was much clearer than in the Cambrian section, but still far from pleasant.

Before them stretched a shore-line flat and uninteresting. The water was dark and motionless, without tide or current. Black mud was there instead of sand, and evil-smelling beds of seaweed were piled up in heaps along the sea's edge. They looked across the silent, sleeping bay, and in the distance saw some low islands.

"Ugh! this gives me the creeps!" exclaimed Helen. "What a dead, dreary place!"

"Yes," answered Whirlaway; "very few creatures could live in that stagnant water, it is Nature's graveyard. There are some strange animals here that men later found as fossils and have called graptolites. The word graptolite means a stone with an impression on it like that made by an old-fashioned quill pen. If you were to see one closely in its living state you would find that it was long and thin and jagged, like a keyhole saw. You'll find a picture of graptolites in that wonderful book of yours, and some day you may see fossil graptolites in a museum."

"You mean I'll see the saw," said Helen flippantly. "Sounds like 'I saw Esau.'

"Puns are poor things," answered Whirlaway severely. "The graptolites and the few shells you can observe belong to animals of the open sea."

"If they belong to the open sea, what are they doing here?" asked Helen quickly.

"Storms have washed them up in the same way as the seaweed. But storms are very rare, and in these enclosed bays not very severe. Have you ever used a slate at school, Helen?"

"Yes, when I was very little. Why?"

"Because it was in Ordovician times that the black mud formed the beds from which, at a very much later period, the slates were quarried."

"Goodness me! How very remarkable!" said Helen. "I suppose I must bow when I see slates on a roof, to show I really respect old age."

"Certainly," answered Whirlaway.

Soon the low monotonous shore-line was succeeded by one more interesting. As they came round a bend, Whirlaway pointed to clouds of steam in the distance.

"Whatever can those be?" asked Helen.

"They are active volcanoes," replied Whirlaway, "and they are discharging molten lava. If we were nearer, you would see it flowing in rivers down the mountain-sides. The Ordovician Period has terrible upheavals. We should be wise to keep near the shore."

Gradually the beach changed its aspect. The waves thundered as the incoming tide hurled them on the shore, but that was the only sound. There were no sea-birds crying out and skimming over the water, only rocks, sand, and huge shells.

"Oh, this is like the beach at home!" cried Helen, racing down to the sand. But, suddenly clutching Tirri tightly, she screamed in horror, for at her feet was an enormous shell-fish, waving monstrous snake-like arms towards her.

"Keep out of its reach!" called Whirlaway. "It is an Orthoceras. But notice the shape of it, like a long, straight horn. That's how it got its name, Straight Horn. It's a horrible creature, devouring everything that its tentacles touch. That one must be quite six feet long. If it is lucky, it will be washed back into the sea when the tide turns. The earliest shells were straight; the coiled ones came later."

"O Whirlaway," breathlessly exclaimed Helen, "my heart's beating like a big drum; I hope we won't get many shocks like that."

"Don't worry," replied Whirlaway, "if you follow my advice you won't get hurt when you see these queer things."

"I hope not," she said, somewhat unsteadily; "but go on. You just tell me things and ask questions."

So he told her that many of the little animals that they had seen from the lift in the Cambrian section had their descendants living in the water close by. But their mode of life had improved. "The graceful sea-lilies that you thought were waving to you have grown more beautiful and much bigger; and the sponges, too, are larger. Coral is here, and the coral creatures are just beginning to think about reef-building. You remember, Helen, that the trilobites—the three-lobed things—you saw were blind, but their descendants have eyes and can see now."

"That's wonderful," said Helen; "but how did they get their sight?"

"Well," replied Whirlaway, "they were living in darkness because no light came through to their ocean bed; but now light has penetrated the water and excited their optic nerves. Don't you remember in your big book those verses that told you how the trilobite got his eyes?" And he began to sing softly:

SONG OF THE TRILOBITE

For ages coiled on the ocean floor,

The Trilobite in silence bore

The desolation of his plight—

It seemed he was doomed to an endless night.

All was darkness, and blind was he;

He could not hear, and he could not see.

A faint light fell on his optic nerve,

What useful purpose could it serve?

"That's odd," thought he; "my rest is gone;

I've a headache in my cephalon

And a tingling where my eyes should be.

I almost believe I'm about to SEE!" And he strained his eyes in his dim abode Till their fifteen thousand facets glowed, And the pain in his cephalon took flight, And his three lobes trembled with sheer delight. His darkness was over; he'd power to see, So he handed it on to his progeny.

"Yes, I saw it in the book, but I didn't think it so good till I heard you sing it," said Helen. "How real you made it!"

Whirlaway looked rather embarrassed at Helen's praise, and to save his blushes said: "Doesn't the sea look nice, Helen?"

"Yes, almost good enough to bathe in," she replied. Suiting the action to her words, Helen took off her shoes and stockings, and, with Tirri close beside her, she walked along the shore.

"Watch for the Orthoceras," warned Whirlaway.

"I'll take care—one look at him was enough, but—" she broke off delightedly. "Oh look, Whirlaway, at what I have found. What is the name of it?"

"A nautiloid shell, and in a later period we shall see the Pearly Nautilus, so called after the Greek word nautilos, a sailor, because it is supposed to sail its ship over the sea. The shell is lined with mother-of-pearl, and is a wonderful citadel, the most perfect and beautiful in the world. In it, rocked by the waves, is the little baby nautilus. As it grows and grows, it adds larger rooms to its little home, moving from one to another. 'Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,'"

"I know that," cried Helen; "it's by Wendell Holmes; we learned it at school."

"The nautilus," continued Whirlaway, "has a small trap-door, which it can close when danger approaches. All the rooms are connected by a spiral tube and are filled with a light gas, which enables the nautilus to float more freely at the bottom of the sea."

"Gas and electricity laid on," said Helen; "like a house."

"Exactly. Now put on your shoes, Helen, and pick up Tirri. We may see the next door at any turn in the cliffs."

So Helen sat down and pulled on her stockings and shoes, and then, picking up Tirri, she set off again.

The next turn proved the correctness of Whirlaway's surmise, for suddenly Helen cried out:

"And there is the door. For once my modern eyes have beaten your ancient ones. Now I'll race you to it—modern legs against ancient legs."

And off she set at full speed, and, with the aid of her long legs, she was able to reach the next year-stone at least two minutes ahead of Whirlaway.