II 



THE FRIENDLY ROCKS 



I FIND there is enough of the troglodyte in most 

 persons to make them love the rocks and the 

 caves and ledges that the air and the rains have 

 carved out of them. 



The rocks are not so close akin to us as the soil; 

 they are one more remove from us ; but they lie back 

 of all, and are the final source of all. I do not sup- 

 pose they attract us on this account, but on quite 

 other grounds. Rocks do not recommend the land 

 to the tiller of the soil, but they recommend it to 

 those who reap a harvest of another sort the ar- 

 tist, the poet, the walker, the student and lover of 

 all primitive open-air things. 



Time, geologic time, looks out at us from the 

 rocks as from no other objects in the landscape. 

 Geologic time ! How the striking of the great clock, 

 whose hours are millions of years, reverberates out 

 of the abyss of the past! Mountains fall, and the 

 foundations of the earth shift, as it beats out the 

 moments of terrestrial history. Rocks have literally 

 come down to us from a fore world. The youth of 

 the earth is in the soil and in the trees and verdure 

 that springs from it; its age is in the rocks; in the 

 40 



