54 WALKS AND TALKS. 



Every river, in its search for a resting-place, has cut a 

 way of even grade across the inequalities of the land, and the 

 rubbish has been dumped somewhere in alluvial border or 

 broad delta, or seaward rolling bar. The Tampa has sawed 

 a broad gash through the Uinta range on its way to the Green 

 river. The Green has cut a dark chasm down through the 

 plateaus of Colorado to the river whose colored waters, poured 

 in from the snow-born floods of the Rocky Mountains, gave 

 name to the river and the state. The Colorado, with aug- 

 mented force, has dug a deeper and a wider canon through 

 the shattered terraces of the southern half of the state. The 

 "Grand Canon" sinks vertically six thousand feet through 

 the rocks a terrific gash, like a sabre-cut from some of the 

 powers of Nature. 



" It looks as if broken by bolts of thunder, 

 Riven and driven by turbulent time." 



So a hundred rivers of the far west have scored the land. 

 So the Cumberland, the Kentucky, the Hudson, the James, 

 the Mississippi, by gentle worrying of the underlying rocks, 

 have plowed out channels whose steep walls rise as high as 

 the smoke from the steamer which utilizes the water-way. 

 We have not seen these works begun; but we see them in 

 progress ; and we feel bound in reason to infer that the rivers 

 have worked in the distant past as they, are working before 

 our eyes. 



There are other erosions, however, which were effected not 

 only before human times, but by agencies which have disap- 

 peared from existence. There are the Catskill Mountains 

 essentially a mere wall of horizontally laid slabs of red sand- 

 stone. We have not detected Nature anywhere raising such 

 a wall. These mountains must be a remnant of a broad for- 

 mation once stretching far east and west. The forces of ero- 

 sion have worn away the formation on both sides, and the 

 Catskills stand forth a feature of relief, as the statue emerges 

 from the block of stone under the chisel of the sculptor. 

 Such, too, is the Cumberland Table Land, high up-raised like 

 a mountain, but yet not uplifted. It is a mere salience re- 



