

OF A FORMER WORLD. ' 15 



CHAPTER II * 



" Let the moon 



Shine on thee in thy solitary walk ; 



And let the misty mountain winds be free 



To blow against thee ; and in after years, 



When these wild ecstasies shall be matured 



Into a sober pleasure when thy mind 



Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 



Thy memory be a dwelling place 



For all sweet sounds and harmonies, oh ! then 



If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief 



Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts 



Of tender joy wilt thou remember me 



And these my benedictions!" WORDSWORTH. 



IN walking over the surface of a country, we witness its 

 undulations, its mountains, and its rivers, and are apt to 

 conclude that hill and valley, river and lake, may have 

 existed in nearly the same condition since time began its 

 ceaseless course. But when we come to examine the struc- 

 ture of the mountain, the causes of undulation, the altera- 

 tions which have taken place in the water courses, nay, even 

 in the general configuration of the globe itself, or of any 

 particular region of it, we naturally exclaim, "the hills 

 themselves are the daughters of time, the waves of the 

 present ocean played in past ages on other shores, and the 

 rivers which supply it are derived from surfaces, which in 

 ancient days were below the level of the deep all that is 

 now land, is but the debrisf of continents and islands now 

 unknown; the wreck of a former world the spoils and 

 the sport of time." 



Effects have been produced, which, if attributed to the 



* See chapter v., p. 45. t The waste of other rocks. 



