ing to
worry about, and I feel that we have nothing to fear for a long, long
time. And we have so much joy to look forward to. Remember Alpha is
coming, and think of his glorious future! Think of his changing all
this!" And he swept his hand toward the grim, gray hills. "Just think of
again gardenizing the world!"

* * * * *

It was indeed a dreary view upon which they gazed. On every side, upon
the mountains and hills, over salt-encrusted plains and upon the rocks,
were the skeletons and shells of departed life. Fossils of the animal
and the vegetable kingdoms greeted one on every hand. Great fronds of
palms of the deep, draped with weird remains of marine life long
extinct, stood gaunt and desolate and rust-covered in the hollows and on
the hills. Long tresses of sea weed and moss, now crisp and dead as
desert sands, still clung in wreaths and festoons to rock and tree and
plant just as they had done in that far-off age, when washed by the
waters of the sea. Great forests of coral, once white and pink and red
with teeming life but now drab and dead, still thrust their arms upward,
their former beauty covered and distorted by the dust of the ages.
Whales and sharks and serpents and fish of divers species and sizes,
together with great eels and monsters of the deep, lay thickly over the
land, their mummified remains shriveled by the intense heat, their
ghastliness softened by the ashes of the years.

Millions of ages had rolled away since the struggle began--the battle of
life on earth against the encroachments of death. And now death stalked
everywhere, grinning with malicious triumph, for he had but one more
battle to fight. Already his grisly clutch was closing on the standard
of victory. Man had mastered life but he had not conquered death. With
the magic wand of science he had reached out into space and viewed the
life of far-off worlds. He had routed superstition and fear and
selfishness. He had banished disease and learned all nature's secrets;
had even visited other worlds and had come to know and understand his
God, but still death had marched grimly on. For even the abysmal moment
of creation had marked the world for his prey. Slowly but surely death
had closed his cold hands about the earth. The sun flung forth his hot
rays and drew more and more of the earth's moisture and dissipated it in
space. Gradually the forests vanished and then the streams and lakes
dwindled and disa