A Supermarket in California carried the dead into the underworld, across the river Styx. The River Lethe was a different river in the underworld, which caused those who drank its waters to experience complete forgetfulness. The shades of the dead were required to drink the waters of the Lethe in order to forget their earthly life. In "Story Line", Ian Marshall suggests that the poem is written to show the differences in American life depicted by Whitman and that which faces Ginsberg in the 1950s: "It's the distance of a century—with Civil War and the 'triumph' of the Industrial Revolution and Darwinism and Freud
The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life then divided into three parts by era, first of which is The Rise of Life, which covers the Precambrian and the Paleozoic Era, and lasts from pages 8 through 49. The second part, The Age of Reptiles, covers the Mesozoic Era, and lasts from pages 50 through 143. The third and final part, The Age of Beasts, covers the Cenozoic Era, and lasts from pages 144 through 206. The book concludes with a timescale of life on earth, tree of life diagrams, and the acknowledgements and index. The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life is