In June small flecks of the dead, decaying sod begin to appear, gradually widening and uniting with one another, covered with creeping rags of water during the day, and ice by night, looking as hopeless and unvital as crushed rocks just emerging from the darkness of the glacial period.

While humanity is growing, they continue fixed; daily get more mechanical and unvital; and by and by tend to strangle what they before preserved.