266 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



must in the long run be invoked, and its power therefore 

 conceded. The fracture theory infers from the disturb- 

 ances of the Alps the existence of fissures; and this is a 

 probable inference. But that they were of a magnitude 

 sufficient to produce the conformation of the Alps, and 

 that they followed, as the Alpine valleys do, the lines of 

 natural drainage of the country, are assumptions which 

 do not appear to me to be justified either by reason or 

 by observation. 



There is a grandeur in the- secular integration of small 

 effects implied by the theory of erosion almost superior to 

 that involved in the idea of a cataclysm. Think of the 

 ages which must have been consumed in the execution of 

 this colossal sculpture. The question may, of course, be 

 pushed further. Think of the ages which the molten earth 

 required for its consolidation. But these vaster epochs 

 lack sublimity through our inability to grasp them. They 

 bewilder us, but they fail to make a solemn impression. 

 The genesis of the mountains comes more within the scope 

 of the intellect, and the majesty of the operation is en- 

 hanced by our partial ability to conceive it. In the fall- 

 ing of a rock from a mountain-head, in the shoot of an 

 avalanche, in the plunge of a cataract, we often see more 

 impressive illustrations of the power of gravity than in the 

 motions of the stars. When the intellect has to intervene, 

 and calculation is necessary to the building up of the con- 

 ception, the expansion of the feelings ceases to be propor- 

 tional to the magnitude of the phenomena. 



I will here record a few other measurements executed 

 on the Rosegg glacier: the line was staked out across the 



