THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. J' 



it is not exactly true. The hills and mountains have 

 been called the "bones of the earth," because they 

 are formed of rock over which is spread a thin layer 

 of soil in which all plants grow. Here and there on 

 the higher and steeper parts, as at the top of the Pali- 

 sades on the Hudson and other hills or mountains, the 

 rocks are bare ; and people have said that the bare 

 bones of the hills can at such places be seen. This is 

 an interesting idea, and is good because it helps us to 

 get at the real truth. All high hills and mountains are 

 made of rock. The bare spots plainly show this, and 

 every mine or oil-well sunk in the hills shows only 

 solid rock, or the remains of rocks, as far down as men 

 have ever been able to bore. The rocks are the bones 

 of the hills. They are really much more. 



A skeleton, as any visit to a museum will show us, is 

 composed of bones arranged in a particular order, 

 the bones of a dog being arranged in one way, the 

 bones of a pickerel in quite another way. There are 

 spaces between the bones, and we recognize that every 

 creature's skeleton is a framework held together by 

 the creature's muscles and soft parts. It is quite dif- 

 ferent with a mountain. It is composed of rock, but 

 the rock is in a mass. There is no framework ; and, 

 except in shape, the rocky mass of one hill may be 

 just like another. Thus we see that the rocks do not 

 form a true skeleton for the hills or mountains. They 

 are simply masses of rock ; and their shape or outside 

 surface depends upon many different things, some of 

 them quite independent of the rocks themselves. 



