SCENES OF ANCIENT DAYS. 287 



while giant birds, with wide-spreading feet, stalked across 

 the newly-formed plains, or flew shrieking, with wings of 

 prodigious expanse skimming the glittering sea, — the lords 

 paramount of this lower world. At length the earth, con- 

 vulsed by mighty throes in the far-away west from north to 

 south, began to cast up a long line of rocky heights, now 

 to sink, now to rise once more above the surface, — till by 

 degrees Pelion piled on Ossa — the vast chain of the Cordil- 

 leras rose towards the skies, forming a mighty barrier be- 

 tween the two great oceans. 



On the eastern side, the waves of the Atlantic, beating 

 continuously, brought down into the shallow sea the debris 

 from the newly-formed rocks, gradually filling up the spaces 

 between the already created islands ; and the streams, running 

 down from the mountain heights, formed the plan of the 

 three gTeat river-systems of the continent — the Orinoco in the 

 north, the Amazon in the centre, and La Plata in the south. 



The Almighty Creator appears always to have worked by 

 mechanical means in preparing the globe for the habitation of 

 man. There came then a glacial period. Ponderous blocks 

 of ice, resting not only on the mountain-sides, but extending 

 over the plains, and acting the part of mighty mill-stones, 

 ground into impalpable powder the pieces of detached rock 

 of which the lower surface was composed, till a soil was 

 formed capable of producing a wondrous and varied vegeta- 

 tion to clothe that Amazonian valley.* 



The work has been accomplished — the land prepared for 

 its future inhabitants ! Mighty torrents fall from the lofty 



* The continent. Professor Agassiz supposes, extended at that time between 200 and 300 

 miles further east than it does at present ; but the waters from the rapidly-melting mass of 

 ice, forcing a passage towards the ocean, carried a large portion away, leaving only certain 

 tracts which now appear in the form of islands at the mouths of the Amazon and Orinoco. 



