10 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



even now, messages from the vasty deep, and the lava 

 shows us that what is firm and fast on the surface is still 

 boiling and seething below. Ever yet the unruly spirits 

 trouble the earth. Here they lift Sweden or Chili high 

 out of the vast ocean, there they draw Greenland and Italy 

 down towards their unknown home. Ever yet the stones 

 live; they lift up and sink islands, they fashion new lakes 

 and fill up large streams ; they pour fiery cataracts from 

 lofty mountains and bury whole cities under vast volumes 

 of ashes. They are ever active, and change, day by day, 

 the very soil on which we live. 



Such were the pebble's earliest days : Is he not well- 

 born? But philosophers tell us that he was born only 

 to die; that life was almost instantly followed by death. 

 To a certain point this is true. As the rock was the first 

 life that came to light from the chaos of atoms, so it also 

 died at the moment of birth. The life-giving electric 

 spark was even but a spark, and, its mission fulfilled, it 

 vanished. The life, that was given from without, that was 

 not inborn, could not continue. Now and then, it is true, 

 fire breaks out anew, as if unable to bear any longer the 

 bonds of death; but what, after all, can it do but lift the 

 coffin's top for a while 1 ? No fire on earth can wake and 

 warm the dead giant within to new life. And yet, even 

 here, where death seems to reign sole and supreme, there 

 are still mysterious powers at work that human wisdom 

 has but partly explained. Place finely-powdered sand on 

 a glass plate and let the clear mass give out a high or 

 low note, and, behold ! the stone, lifeless, soulless stone, 

 listens to the harmonious sound, dances and frolics, and 



