ONLY A PEBBLE. 15 



all Holland ; before the Ganges and the Mississippi grow 

 vast islands of mud and sand far into the ocean. The 

 Po and the Rhine, like greater rivers, have even raised 

 their own bed, so that they now flow above the sur- 

 rounding plain, and costly levees only can keep our own 

 Father of Rivers within his natural bounds. From high 

 mountains come the unmeasured stores of finely-ground 

 stone that cover the bed of the ocean. Every tide and 

 every current, that approaches the coast, brings on its 

 broad shoulders immense masses of sand, and heaps them, 

 layer upon layer, until the downs of some countries rise 

 to a height of two hundred feet. It is as if the poor 

 exiled stone longed to return to its early home. Raging 

 and roaring, new tides and new waves rush against their 

 own offspring, but the humble pebble, strong in union, 

 and hardened by the very pressure of the waters, resists 

 their fury, checks the huge power of the ocean, and pro- 

 tects proud man in his possessions! 



Man hardly dreams of the fierce, incessant warfare that 

 is waged against the loftiest mountain chains of our earth. 

 It is true we see Alpine torrents press angrily through 

 their narrow bed, half filled with ruins, we hear the thun- 

 der of mighty rocks that fall with the terrible avalanche, 

 we know even mountain sides to slide and to bury whole 

 towns under their colossal weight. The dweller in high 

 Alpine regions sees, through spring and through summer, 

 large stones suddenly fly off from the steep, smooth sides 

 of the highest rocks, often with such loud explosions and 

 so constantly, as to resemble the regular fire of a platoon. 

 The mountain shepherd sees, year after year, his pastures 



