BOOK III. 



THE MOUNTAINS: CATACLYSMS AND UP- 

 HEAVALS OF THE GLOBE. 



IT is in the midst of lofty mountains that Nature develops 

 her most magnificent scenes. Their winding-sheets of 

 eternal snow, their diaderns of ice, and their burning vol- 

 canoes by turns strike and astonish the traveller. "It 

 seems," says Rousseau, '" as if, when we rise above the 

 dwellings of men, we leave behind all low and earth-born 

 sentiments, and that in proportion as we approach the 

 ethereal regions the soul contracts something of their un- 

 changeable purity ! " 



Here we are penetrated by a sense of the divine majesty 

 and human weakness. Before their colossal masses, their 

 frightful and sombre clefts, we can say with the old German 

 miner, " Man is only an atom on the mountain, though he 

 is a giant in the mine." 



The aspect of the sea is monotonous compared to that 

 of the frowning crests of the globe ; if it have its gales 

 and tempests, they have their hurricanes and avalanches. 

 Mountains are also of importance in the harmony of the 

 globe. These grand chains, the summits of which pierce 

 the lofty regions of the atmosphere, seem, says De Saus- 

 sure ? to be the laboratory of Nature, and the reservoir from 



