THE STILL SMALL VOICE 



forms makes no sound. Think of the still small 

 voice of radio-activity so still and small that only 

 molecular science is aware of it, yet physicists be- 

 lieve it to be the mainspring of the universe. 



The vast ice-engine that we call a glacier is almost 

 as silent as the slumbering rocks, and, to all but the 

 eye of science, nearly as immobile, save where it 

 discharges into the sea. It is noisy in its dying, but 

 in the height of its power it is as still as the falling 

 snow of which it is made. Yet give it time enough, 

 and it scoops out the valleys and grinds down the 

 mountains and turns the courses of rivers, or makes 

 new ones. 



We split the rocks and level the hills with our 

 powder and dynamite and fill the world with noise; 

 but behold the vast cleavage of the rocks which the 

 slow, noiseless forces of sun and frost bring about! 

 In the Shawangunk Mountains one may see enor- 

 mous masses of conglomerate that have been split 

 down from the mam range, showing as clean a 

 cleavage over vast surfaces as the quarryman can 

 produce on small blocks with his drills and wedges. 

 One has to pause and speculate on the character 

 of the forces that achieved such results and left no 

 mark of sudden violence behind. The forces that 

 cleft them asunder were the noiseless sunbeams. 

 The unequal stress and strain imparted by varying 

 temperatures clove the mountains from top to bot- 

 tom as with a stroke of the earthquake's hammer. 

 109 



