of Mt. Coxcomb, a prolonged drought was broken 

 by a very heavy rain. Within an hour after the 

 rain started, a large crag near the top of the peak 

 fell and came crashing and rumbling down the 

 slope. During the next two hours I counted the 

 rumbling crash of forty others. I know not how 

 many small avalanches may have slipped during 

 this time that I did not hear. The next day I 

 went about looking at the new landscapes and 

 the strata laid bare by erosion and landslide, and 

 up near the top of this peak I found a large gla- 

 ciated lava boulder. A lava boulder that has been 

 shaped by the ice and has for a time found a 

 resting-place in a sedentary formation, then been 

 uplifted to near a mountain-top, has a wonder- 

 story of its own. One day I came across a mem- 

 ber of the United States Geological Survey who 

 had lost his way. At my camp-fire that evening I 

 asked him to hug facts and tell me a possible 

 story of the glaciated lava boulder. The follow- 

 ing is his account: — 



The shaping of that boulder must have ante- 

 dated by ages the shaping of the Sphinx, and its 

 story, if acceptably told, would seem more like 



247 



