tbe Stut> of 1Flatui*al Scenery 7 



rains more frequent and the violence of storms and cyclones 

 less severe. 



But leaving these meditations, let us make a hasty survey 

 of the great panorama of nature, as it unfolds before us, 

 scene after scene in ever-changing succession. Let us take 

 a walk through fields and woods, along the winding 

 rivers, up to the alpine world where the mossy rock-plants 

 are even greater in their beauty than the towering and 

 frowning cliffs in their immensity. We will observe how 

 the little seedling roots in the fissure of a rock and gradually 

 forms a leafy mat covered with flowers ; how the various 

 kinds of trees and herbs seek different positions and there 

 make their homes ; how the rivulets are born and grow ; 

 the natural positions of lakes, and cliffs, and many other 

 things that will help us to make the garden beautiful. 



We know the primary causes of the diversity of the 

 surface of the earth ; how hills and mountains have been 

 lifted up through volcanic forces, how the broken sides of 

 the rocks were afterwards rounded and polished by the 

 action of glaciers and, more slowly but in a no less 

 marked manner, through constant changes of temperature 

 and moisture. We know how the alluvial soil along streams 

 and rivers has been formed, by means of successive sedi- 

 mentary deposits, and how even now the ground is slowly 

 changing, as if the great landscape-gardener, Nature, took 

 pleasure in constantly creating new and startling effects. 



It will not be necessary to attempt explanations of sub- 

 jects so foreign to this work, but merely to observe what 

 actually exists as beautiful objects and nothing more. 



Commencing by the seaside, we find even there many 



