nd building such a solid wall of shell that no fierceness of
the wildest storm could work them harm. All these seek their food from
Him who feeds all life, and he heaves the ocean up to their mouths that
they may drink.

[Illustration: A Triple Natural Arch, Santa Cruz, Cal.]

No. 7 shows what has been a quadruple arch, only one part of which is
still standing. Out in the sea, lonely and by itself, appears a pier,
scarcely emergent from the waves, which once supported an arch parallel
to the one now standing and also one at right angles to the shore. The
one now standing makes the fourth. But the ever-working sea carves and
carries away arch and shore alike. At some points a careful and even
admiring observer sees little change for years, but the remorseless
tooth gnaws on unceasingly.

[Illustration: Remains of a Quadruple Natural Arch, Santa Cruz, Cal.]

On the right near the point is seen a board sign. It says here, as in
many other places, "Danger." Sometimes two converging waves meet at
the land, rise unexpectedly, sweep over the point irresistibly, and
carry away anyone who stands there. One large and two small shreds of
skin now gone from the palm of my left hand give proof of an experience
there that did not result quite so disastrously.

The illustration facing page 188 is another example of an arch cut
through the rocky barrier of the shore. But in this case the trend of
the less hard rock was at such an angle to the shore that the sea broke
into the channel once more, and then the combined waves from the two
entrances forced the passage one hundred and forty paces inland. It
terminates in another natural bridge and deep excavation beyond, which
are not shown in the picture.

[Illustration: Arch Remains Side Wall Broken, Santa Clara, Cal.]

What becomes of this comminuted rock, cleft by wedges of water, scoured
over by hundreds of tons of sharp sand? It is carried out by gentle
undercurrents into the bay and ocean, and laid down where winds never
blow nor waves ever beat, as gently as dust falls through the summer
air. It incloses fossils of the plant and animal life of to-day.
There rest in nature's own sepulcher the skeletons of sharks and whales
of to-day and possibly of man. Sometime, if the depths become heights,
as they have in a thousand places in the past, a fit intelligence may
read therein much of the present history of the world. We say to that
coming age, as a past age has said