16 SPARKS FROM A GEOLOGIST'S HAMMER. 



previously practiced, but Gutenberg first introduced mov- 

 able types. The Bible was the first book printed. It 

 appeared at Mayence in two folio volumes in 1456. 



As we sweep around the city, on our departure, the 

 form of the grimy old Cathedral rises so grandly and 

 loftily above the Alsatian capital that it seems to hold 

 possession of the plain in a sort of solitude, that solitude 

 which those experience ' ' se loftiness of character finds 

 no companionship in the common herd of men. The total 

 altitude of the tower is 524 feet, this being the loftiest 

 building in Europe. St. Martin's, at Landshut, in Ger- 

 many, is 483 feet ; St. Peter's, at Rome, 455 feet ; St. 

 Paul's, in London, 340 feet. 



At Basel, the rushing Rhine is turbid and cold with 

 the contributions of a hundred glacier torrents. As its 

 restless waters hasten from our presence, thought follows 

 them, spinning a thread of storied recollections from end 

 to end of the classic Rheingau. At Basel is a most ven- 

 erable cathedral, founded in 1010, the seat of the great 

 Council of 1431, convened to effect a reformation in the 

 church. 



Leaving Basel we ascend the valley of the Aar, whose 

 roaring torrent babbles of a recollection of the mountain 

 and the glacier, and whose turbid waters and pebbled 

 borders proclaim our advent in the region of the Jura 

 Alps. The name of the river and of the two Aar glaciers 

 in which it takes its rise is memorable. It recalls the name 

 of the illustrious savant Agassiz, who in 1841 erected his 

 hut upon the glacier, and studied, with a few chosen com- 

 panions, the laws of glacier motion, laying the foundation 

 of the bold theory, since accepted as a doctrine of science, 

 that a general glaciation once visited the whole northern 



