UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



section of the drili-hole on the corner of each, and 

 think of my brother. It was before the time of fuses, 

 and I remember he primed the blast by the spindle 

 method, and then laid a train of powder with a frag- 

 ment of paper at the end of it. A lighted match was 

 touched to the paper, and then we ran to a safe dis- 

 tance as fast as our legs could carry us. 



How geologic time looks out from the ledges and 

 walls of gray rocks unmindful of us human ephem- 

 era that pass ! It has seen the mountains decay and 

 the hills grow old. The huge drift boulders rest on 

 the margin of meadows and fields, or stand sentry 

 to the woods, and though races and kingdoms pass, 

 scarcely the change of a wrinkle disturbs their calm 

 stone faces. Yet time gets the better of them also. 

 The frowning ledge melts as inevitably as a snow- 

 bank. 



Geologic time is the most potent of the gods of 

 change. He wields an invisible hammer beside which 

 the hammer of Thor is a child's toy. Its slow, silent 

 blows break in through granite rocks as big as a 

 house. The traveler sees them along the road when 

 he enters Yosemite; he may see them in New Eng- 

 land; he may see them on Lake Mohonk, or on the 

 Shawangunk Mountains in New York — sheer 

 cleavage of rock-masses from fifty to one hundred 

 feet through — a clean break while the huge frag- 

 ment of the mountain is lying where it fell. It is 

 as if the sunbeams or starbeams did it, as if the 



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