100 THE MOUNTAIN. 



long, a lonely, barren road, from fiery vapors to solid rocks, 

 from the lichen and moss clinging to the naked lava or 

 granite, to the corn-stalk and apple-tree in the prairie sod. 

 Ages must struggle to feed the plant, ages again to nourish 

 the animal, and ages upon ages to fill the streams which 

 circulate through this wondrous creature, man. Incan- 

 descent crystallines would have been a troublesome home 

 for the cereals, and only decades of centuries of wear 

 and tear could give nourishment to their roots. Where 

 shall the elephant browse ? where shall the horse make his 

 manger ? and wherewithal, especially, his rider be clothed 

 and fed ? 



The gods were at work, primeval powers forged the re- 

 fractory elements into propriety, and life and light flashed 

 upon the world. The lichen stirred the stillness and was a 

 fact ; the trilobite became an individual, and soon had bro- 

 thers and cousins ; the saurian flourished an animated rock, 

 the incarnation of the brute or dragon forces of the world, 

 and made the deep to boil ; and the tread of the mastodon 

 was heard in the forest. At last, with order and beauty a 

 teeming earth, wrapt by a mantle of delicious crystalline air, 

 wandered a docile and obedient satellite through ethereal 

 spaces, and the hand of Praxiteles brought forth the im- 

 perishable beauty slumbering in the marble's heart ; Plato 

 talked, amidst the groves of Academus, of divine virtue and 

 the immortal soul ; and Cuvier dreamed over that wondrous 

 bone to the music of a galaxy of morning stars shouting 

 together the great song of a reclaimed earth and the science 

 of geology ! The divine end seems to have arrived. With 

 quiet and majestic steps this system of illimitable goodness 

 and unspeakable beauty has been approaching the haven 

 of its perfection, and the lover of Nature is now left to con- 

 template and admire forever the bountiful provision which 

 has been made for his enjoyment and delight on "this green 

 ball which floats him through the heavens." 



