Rachel Carson

Before the first living cell was created, there may have been many trials and failures.

Almost the whole continental rim of the Pacific basin is aquiver with earthquakes and fiery with volcanoes, some frequently active, some extinct, some merely sleeping a centuries-long sleep between periods of explosive violence.

Landward is the almost unbroken wall of submerged reefs where the big niggerhead corals send their solid bulks up to within a fathom or two of the surface.

[…] a drought year brought conditions especially favorable to the beetle and the mortality of elms went up 1000 per cent.