OLD ALPINE JOTTINGS. 495 



the deportment of its stones. Their discharge along the 

 side of the pyramid was incessant, and at any moment 

 by detaching a single boulder we could let loose a 

 cataract of them, which flew with wild rapidity and with 

 a clatter as loud as thunder down the mountain. We 

 once wandered too far from the arete, and were warned 

 back to it by a train of these missiles sweeping past us. 



As long as the temperature of our planet differs from 

 that of space so long will the forms upon her surface 

 undergo mutation, and as. soon as equilibrium has been 

 established we shall have, not peace, but death. Life is 

 the product and accompaniment of change, and the self- 

 same power that tears the flanks of the hills to pieces is 

 the mainspring of the animal and vegetable worlds. 

 Still, there is something chilling, if not humiliating, in 

 the contemplation of the irresistible and remorseless 

 character of those infinitesimal forces whose summation 

 through the ages pulls down even the Matterhorn. 

 Hacked and hurt by time, the aspect of the mountain 

 from its higher crags saddened me. Hitherto the im- 

 pression it had made was that of savage strength, but 

 here we had inexorable decay. 



This notion of decay implied a reference to a period 

 of prime when the Matterhorn was in the full strength 

 of mountainhood. Thought naturally ran back to its 

 possible growth and origin. Nor did it halt there, bur, 

 wandered on through molten worlds to that nebulous 

 haze which philosophers have regarded, and with good 

 reason, as the proximate source of all material things. 

 Could the blue sky above be the residue of that haze ? 

 Would the azure which deepens on the heights sink 

 into utter darkness beyond the atmosphere? I tried 

 to look at this universal cloud, containing within itself 

 the prediction of all that has since occurred ; I tried 

 to imagine it as the seat of those forces whose action 



