288 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSUKE 



the middle of these meditations, the idea of the little creatures that 

 crawl on its surface crosses his mind ; if he compares their duration 

 to the great epochs of nature, how much must he wonder that, occupy- 

 ing so little space both in place and time, they should have been able 

 to imagine that they were the sole end of the creation of the universe, 

 and when, from the summit of Etna, he sees under his feet two 

 Empires that in other times nourished millions of warriors, how puerile 

 must ambition appear to him ! It is there that the Temple of Wisdom 

 should be built ; in which, to repeat after the bard of nature, ' Suave 

 mari magno.' 



The accessible peaks of the Alps present views perhaps not so vast 

 or so brilliant, but even more instructive to the Geologist. It is from 

 them that he sees before him the lofty and ancient mountains, the 

 original and most solid skeleton of our globe, which deserve the name 

 of primitives because, disdaining all alien support or extraneous mixture, 

 they invariably repose on homogeneous bases and include in their 

 substance nothing of another nature. He studies their structure, he 

 distinguishes beneath the ravages of time the traces of their original 

 form ; he observes the connection of these ancient mountains with 

 those of more recent formation ; he notices the more recent resting 

 on the older ; he distinguishes the strata, very much disturbed at their 

 contact with the primitives, but more and more horizontal as they 

 are farther from them ; he observes the gradations which nature has 

 followed in passing from one formation to another ; and an acquaint- 

 ance with these gradations helps him to raise a corner of the veil 

 which covers the mystery of their origin. 



The physical student, like the Geologist, finds on the high moun- 

 tains worthy objects of admiration and study. These great chains, 

 the tops of which pierce into the upper regions of the atmosphere, 

 seem to be the workshop of nature and the reservoirs whence she 

 draws the benefits and the disasters she spreads over our earth, the 

 streams which water it, and the torrents which ravage it, the rains 

 which fertilise it, and the storms which spread desolation. All the 

 phenomena of general physics present themselves with a grandeur and 

 majesty of which the inhabitants of the plains have no idea, the action 

 of the winds and atmospheric electricity assume an astonishing force, 

 the clouds form under the eyes of the observer, and often he watches 

 the tempests which devastate the plains born under his feet, while 

 the sun shines brightly on him, and above his head the sky remains 

 clear and calm. Striking incidents of every kind vary at each moment 

 the scene ; here a torrent flings itself from the rocks, forming jets 

 and cascades which melt into spray and present to the spectator 



