22 ^LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



shape and home, to join countless other stones, metals, and 

 earths, and, with them, to give new life and new beauty 

 to the unknown mineral world. Invisible, he gushes forth 

 in the clear waters of hot springs, from the very heart 

 of the earth. The burning geysers of Iceland are not too 

 hot for him; the very craters of Kamschatka afford him 

 a comfortable home, and, with strange pleasure, he forms 

 a stony armor around the tender stalks of graceful 



As if he had lost his way and strayed from his path, 

 he is found in chalk-mountains, far from his kindred, and 

 oddly shaped in the form of flints, holding in his bosom 

 the power of calling forth the hidden fire of metals. 

 Everywhere his works are seen. Here he builds heaven- 

 aspiring Alps, with deep abysses and lovely valleys ; their 

 lofty heads are buried in eternal ice, on which the morn- 

 ing and evening sun kindles fires that proclaim the power 

 of the Almighty far over land and sea; from their sides 

 thunder death-bearing avalanches and furious torrents, 

 whilst at their feet lie green meadows and still waters, 

 where the weary love to rest. There he raises huge 

 domes, crowned with frowning forests, or he sends up, as 

 if in sport, strange, quaintly-shaped columns of sandstone, 

 that tower like enchanted castles above the plain. The 

 pebble is the true architect of mountains; it is he who 

 built their gigantic pyramids and their mighty cupolas; 

 if we descend to the first stones of the plutonic world, 

 there is the pebble ; if we rise up to volcanic creation, 

 even there we meet the despised pebble. Again he 

 spreads himself out in dreary vastness over the plains 



