Nature teems with elements and forces to wait on man’s every thought, to gratify his every desire, and to respond to his every aspiration. With all her wealth she surrounds him, and in ten thousand ways invites him to use it. The naturalist Guyot said the hand of man prefigures his destiny as an intelligent worker. So the form of all continents and islands, the outlines of all seas and coasts, contain the idea of the human family. At a time, geologically about the same, the surface conditions of the earth were prepared for the advent of man. The great Himalaya Mountain range was lifted up to prepare an embosoming plain to serve as a cradle for the human race. The long chain of mountains running through the whole length of the North and South American continents was raised to prepare the way for civilization on this side of the sea. When the ocean beds were dug out and the waters called off from a part of the earth’s surface; when the mighty peaks and the majestic turrets of the mountain chains were lifted into the sky; when the encompassing atmosphere was filled with all life-replenishing elements and wrapped about all oceans and shores; when the poisonous forces destructive of man’s life were locked up in soils and rocks; when the meadows were sown with grasses, and the hospitable arms of the trees were loaded with fruit, then, upon the earth, adorned and ready for his coming, man appeared. V. Considered as an embodiment of thought, man is the only creature who can interpret Nature. The ideas and principles that fill his great books were gathered from a study of her secrets and processes. The first books on geology, giving the history of the earth, its upheavals, changes, and transformations, were written in the rocks, sands, coal-beds, and shells of the primal ages. The first books on chemistry were written in the shape, sizes, affinities, and specific gravities of the atoms which enter into the composition of all natural bodies. The first books on arithmetic, by the knowledge of which man learns to divide and conquer nature, were written in the qualitative relations and movements of matter. The first books on astronomy were written in the orbits and movements of the heavenly bodies. The first books on zoölogy were written in the structure and habits of the lower animals. The books that fill our libraries are but transcripts from the original volumes written in rocks, seas, flowers, and skies. Man is the only being who can read and transcribe these wonderful volumes. They lie unopened and unknown till his interest is provoked. Their language carries no meaning till he comes to find it and to ponder it. The herds that low amid the Alpine echoes see, as well as the distinguished Tyndall, the great glaciers, as they press with slow and measured pace down the mountain side; but their meaning, and the law by which they move, is not known till the man of science comes. To him, they speak in awful and majestic terms. To the