158 



NATURE FOB ITS OWN SAKE 



The wear of 



The 



sculptor of 

 thtland. 



sunlight have a cutting and a wearing power 

 ;hat nothing can withstand. There is no edge 

 to water itself, but its action sets grit and 

 gravel, stones and even bowlders moving, and 

 the teeth of these are very sharp. A stream 

 running four miles an hour will roll down 

 stones nearly three inches in diameter, and 

 wherever the water flows and particles touch, 

 there is wear upon the land. This never-ceas- 

 ing rub, rub, rub, carves deep lines in the 

 course of centuries ; and so it is that the smooth 

 water becomes the great sculptor of the earth. 

 Standing on Storm King and viewing the val- 

 ley of the Hudson, standing on the Minnesota 

 bluffs and overlooking the valley of the Missis- 

 sippi, standing on the heights above the Cafion 

 of the Colorado, we gain some idea of what lines 

 this great sculptor can cut. A gulch five hun- 

 dred or a thousand feet deep, from one to ten 

 miles broad, and from a thousand to two thou- 

 sand miles long, is not an extraordinary feat for 

 water to accomplish. Along the sand-stone 

 battlements of the Mississippi bluffs, far above 

 the present bed of the river, the trace of water- 

 wear is still plainly visible ; and centuries ago 

 the little hills, the inland valleys, the clefts and 

 cloves and narrow defiles in the Catskill Moun- 



