g
the tibia of a child's leg, and may have belonged to some antediluvian
infant lost at sea, (if Noah's ancestors were mariners,) or perhaps
drowned in the Deluge,--for Mr. F. quoted an eminent geologist who has
visited the Vineyard, and who supposed these remains to have been
brought here by that mighty Flood-tide. Another _savant_, however,
supposes the island to have been thrown up from the sea by volcanic
action; and that the fossils, now imbedded in cliffs a hundred feet
high, were once deposited upon the bed of the ocean. There is certainly
a great amount of conglomerate, which has evidently been fused by
intense heat; and masses of rock, sea-pebbles, sand, and iron-ore are
now as firmly integrated as a piece of granite.

However, the fossils came; here they certainly are; many of them perfect
in form, and light and porous to the eye, but all hard and heavy as
stone to the touch. Teeth, which are considered the most valuable of all
the remains, are sometimes found as wide as a man's hand, and weighing
several pounds; but Mysie was quite content with the more insignificant
weight of those which filled her basket, especially when an immense
reticulated paving-stone was added, which Mr. F. pronounced to be a
whale's vertebra. She then was induced to trust the precious collection
to Caleb's care, the more willingly that the ascent of the cliffs was
now to be attempted. This was easily and quickly accomplished by Mr. F.
and his little son, by going to the right spot before beginning to
climb; but Mysie declaring that the ascent was quite practicable where
they were, Caleb and Clarissa felt bound in honor to accompany her. For
some distance, all went very well,--the face of the cliff presuming
slight inequalities of surface, which answered for foot-and hand-holds,
and not being very steep; but suddenly Mysie, the leader of the group,
arriving within about three feet of the top, found the rock above her so
smooth as to give no possible foothold by which she might reach the
strong, coarse grass which nodded tauntingly to her over the brink.

Clinging closely to the face of the cliff, she turned her head to
announce to Caleb that she could not go on, and, in turning, looked
down. Before this she had felt no fear, only perplexity; but the sight
of those cruel rocks below,--the hollow booming of the waves, as they
lashed the foot of the cliff,--the consciousness that a fall of a
hundred feet awaited her, should she let go h