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palaces. I could believe in one restaurant, on those terms; but then how
about the three? Did they have restaurants there at three different
periods of the world?--because there are two or three feet of solid
earth between the oyster leads. Evidently, the restaurant solution will
not answer.
The hill might have been the bottom of the sea, once, and been lifted up,
with its oyster-beds, by an earthquake--but, then, how about the
crockery? And moreover, how about three oyster beds, one above another,
and thick strata of good honest earth between?
That theory will not do. It is just possible that this hill is Mount
Ararat, and that Noah's Ark rested here, and he ate oysters and threw the
shells overboard. But that will not do, either. There are the three
layers again and the solid earth between--and, besides, there were only
eight in Noah's family, and they could not have eaten all these oysters
in the two or three months they staid on top of that mountain. The
beasts--however, it is simply absurd to suppose he did not know any more
than to feed the beasts on oyster suppers.
It is painful--it is even humiliating--but I am reduced at last to one
slender theory: that the oysters climbed up there of their own accord.
But what object could they have had in view?--what did they want up
there? What could any oyster want to climb a hill for? To climb a hill
must necessarily be fatiguing and annoying exercise for an oyster. The
most natural conclusion would be that the oysters climbed up there to
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