IViti &ifi on t^i (gocUke 



fancy than fact. If the boulder were to relate, 

 briefly, its experiences, it might say : " I helped 

 burn forests and strange cities as I came red-hot 

 from a volcano's throat, and I was scarcely cool 

 when disintegration brought flowers to cover 

 my dead form. By and by a long, long winter 

 came, and toward the close of it I was sheared off, 

 ground, pushed, rolled, and rounded beneath the 

 ice. ' Why are you grinding me up ? ' I asked 

 the glacier. ' To make food for the trees and the 

 flowers during the earth's next temperate epoch,' 

 it answered. One day a river swept me out of its 

 delta and I rolled to the bottom of the sea. Here 

 I lay for I know not how long, with sand and 

 boulders piling upon me. Here heat, weight, and 

 water fixed me in a stratum of materials that had 

 accumulated below and above me. My stratum 

 was displaced before it was thoroughly solidified, 

 and I felt myself slowly raised until I could look 

 out over the surface of the sea. The waves at 

 once began to wear me, and they jumped up 

 and tore at me until I was lifted above their 

 reach. At last, when I was many thousand feet 

 above the waves, I came to a standstill. Then 



248 



