THE TUNNEL THROUGH MONT CENIS. 149 



polype. But if man, standing . alone, is weak, man 

 working according to the law assigned to his race from 

 the beginning that is, in fellowship with his kind^ 

 is verily a being of power. 



Perhaps no work ever undertaken by man strikes 

 one as more daring than the attempt to pierce the 

 Alps with a tunnel. Nature seems to have upreared 

 these mighty barriers as if with the design of showing 

 man how weak he is in her presence. Even the armies 

 of Hannibal and Napoleon seemed all but powerless in 

 the face of these vast natural fastnesses. Compelled 

 to creep slowly and cautiously along the difficult and 

 narrow ways which alone were open to them, deci- 

 mated by the chilling blasts which swept the face of the 

 rugged mountain-range, and dreading at every moment 

 the pitiless swoop of the avalanche, the French and 

 Carthaginian troops exhibited little of the pomp and 

 dignity which we are apt to associate with the opera- 

 tions of warlike armies. Had the denizen of some 

 other planet been able to watch their progress, he 

 might indeed have said ' these men are a puny race.' 

 In this only, that they succeeded, did the troops of 

 Hannibal and Napoleon assert the dignity of the 

 human race. Grand as was the aspect of nature, and 

 mean as was that of man during the progress of the 

 contest, it was nature that was conquered, man that 

 overcame. 



And now man has entered on a new conflict with 

 nature in the gloomy fastnesses of the Alps. The barrier 

 which he had scaled of old he has now undertaken to 



