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