THE EARTH FRAME 



205 



tense that it can be heard. The very air is 

 freighted with the hush of a majestic presence. 

 It comes to us with an indescribable vibration 

 which has about it the hum of distance and im- 

 mensity. The sea-shell which the child holds to 

 its ear suggests the same wondering tale. It is 

 something that tells of power and eternity. 



How many centuries that masonry has stood ! 

 How many centuries, through heat and cold and 

 earthquake shocks, it will continue to stand ! 



" When you and I behind the veil have passed, 

 Oh but the long, long years the world will last." 



Surely, it has a strong foundation. Not here 

 in the Alps alone, but in the Caucasus, the 

 Andes, the Rockies, its supporting courses of 

 rock keep peeping out. It was only geological 

 yesterday that these breaks in the crust became 

 apparent ; and, perhaps, under the rounded, tim- 

 ber-grown slopes of the Appalachians, or the old, 

 old, grass-grown plains there rest still mightier 

 strata of rock. Again, the scratches made in 

 the great shell by eroding rivers like the Colo- 

 rado, the Mississippi, the Hudson, the Rhine, 

 the Danube, are but recent gnawings of water 

 upon rocks. Under the table -lands and the 

 foot-hills may rest an untouched rock-structure 



Under- 

 structure ( 

 the moun- 

 tain*. 



of the 



rock*. 



