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mocky and irregular outline. The mineral veins traversing the 
Skiddaw Slate do not affect the adjacent rock so much, so that 
their existence has less effect on the contour of the country through 
which they pass. Whenever the hills formed of these rocks have 
an irregular outline, it is due to the presence of harder beds. 
I must now bring my remarks to a close ; and in doing so, let 
me briefly recapitulate the results at which we have arrived. In 
the first place we have seen that the exterior portion of the 
earth’s crust is made up of rocks of several different kinds, 
varying in hardness in the manner of their occurrence, and in 
numerous other particulars. We have further seen that these rocks 
are acted upon and denuded, both chemically and mechanically, 
by such agents as water, either at rest or in motion, by frost, and 
by the atmosphere. Lastly, we have seen that to these agents, 
acting on the rocks with variable intensity, is due all that beautiful 
carving into hill and dale which we so much admire. By many, 
no doubt, it will be regarded as unquestionable that all our much 
prized scenery—the rough and rugged hills in the north, and the 
low-lying gentle undulations of the south—was specially intended 
to delight the eye and mind of man; but to the geologist it will, 
I think, appear rather as an incidental existence, which has arisen 
in the grand process of destruction and reproduction, which is and 
has been for millions of years going on in the rocky structure of 
our globe. Here, as often elsewhere in the universe, beauty for 
its own sake does not exist ; still none the less need we prize it. 
‘Do we think less of the lovely flowers because we know that their 
bright and charming colors are primarily displayed as allurements 
to the insect tribe, for the selfish purpose of securing their own 
existence? Or does the floor of heaven, “thick inlaid with 
patines of bright gold,” impress us less now that we know some- 
thing of its real nature than it did before astronomy had so rudely 
upset our old ideas? No! And no less succesfully will beautiful 
scenery appeal to the esthetic part of our nature, because we know 
that such scenery is only an incidental of rock denudation. 
