44 STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



The scenes in our own land which are most nearly 

 allied to rains are the ancient rocks that gird our shores 

 and give variety to our landscapes. They are, in fact, 

 the ruins of an ancient world, existing probably before 

 the human race had made their abode here. In these 

 rocks the frosts of thousands of winters, and the light 

 nings of as many summers have made numerous fis 

 sures, and split them asunder in many places. We 

 find the same species of saxatile and parasitic plants 

 clustering about them which are found among the ruins 

 of art. The forest trees have inserted their roots into 

 their crevices, and oaks that have stood for centuries 

 nod their heads over the brink of these precipices, and 

 cast a gloomier shade into the valleys below. Nothing 

 can be more affecting than some of these ruins of 

 nature, that want only the historical associations con 

 nected with the ruins of temples and palaces, to render 

 them equally interesting. 



Man's natural love of mystery, and his proneness to 

 indulge in that emotion of grandeur and infinity that 

 flows from the sight of any thing involved in the dim 

 ness of remote ages of the past, are one cause of the 

 intense interest felt in the study of geology. With a 

 deep feeling of awe we trace the footprints of those un 

 known animals which were the denizens of a former 

 world. The mind " is roused to profound contempla 

 tion at the sight of piles of rocks as high as the clouds, 

 recumbent on a bed of fern, and at finding the remains 

 of animals that once sported on the summits of other 

 Alps, now buried beneath the very base and foundation 

 of ours." 



