Page:Lost Galleon (1867).djvu/77

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TO THE PLIOCENE SKULL.


A GEOLOGICAL ADDRESS.


"Speak, O man, less recent! Fragmentary fossil!
Primal pioneer of pliocene formation,
Hid in lowest drifts below the earliest stratum
Of volcanic tufa!

Older than the beasts, the oldest Palæotherium;
Older than the trees, the oldest Cryptogamia;
Older than the hills, those infantile eruptions
Of earth's epidermis!

Eo—Mio—Plio—whatsoe'er the "cene" was

That those vacant sockets filled with awe and wonder—