s so! whence came this stranger
rock? how formed? and how were its smooth, worn sides so systematically
engraved?"

Fern Fenwick closed her series of queries with a gradually rising pitch
and inflection in the ringing tones of her clear, musical voice. With
figure erect, eyes flashing, cheeks glowing and hands uplifted, she
seemed the personification of some priestess of science. Fillmore Flagg
and George Gaylord gazed at her with the admiration of amazement. Mrs.
Bainbridge exclaimed:

"Why Fern Fenwick! How you do go on with such nonsense, to be sure. No
doubt these gentlemen, from this time forward, will look at you as some
scientific freak or geological professor of the female persuasion, but
recently escaped from the walls of some famous college!"

"Mrs. Bainbridge," said Fillmore Flagg, "of course we understand that
you were joking in what you said just now: that you really admire the
terse, clear, and wonderfully complete description of this strange rock
by Miss Fenwick, quite as much as we do." Turning to Fern Fenwick, he
continued: "I believe, Miss Fenwick, that I can throw some light on the
puzzling questions you have so poetically propounded."

"Pray do tell us, Mr. Flagg," said Fern Fenwick; "I can't remember when
I was so excited with interest on any subject before."

"Very well," said Fillmore Flagg: "That curiously able and intellectual
man, Mr. Ignatius Donnelly, in his very interesting book called
'Ragnarok,' or 'The Age of Fire and Gravel,' puts forth a most
remarkable theory regarding the drift formation, to the truth of which
this huge rock seems to bear witness. The theory, briefly stated, is as
follows: A great many ages ago, when this globe of ours was still in the
period of cataclysms, rolling through space around the sun, it came in
contact with a portion of the end of the tail of some enormous comet,
sweeping through the universe on its erratic course. This great boulder
is a sample of the component parts of that fiery tail, which smote the
exposed face of the earth so terribly with the drift deposit at that
time of dire disaster. The age of fire and gravel, surely! This curious
clay, now of such flinty hardness, was at one time the exceedingly fine
dust of the comet, cohering, collecting and embedding its mixture of
pebbles and gravel by the heat and pressure of the friction caused by
its incalculably swift passage through space for periods of uncounted
ages. Remember that the heat of all