Leaves from a Madeira Garden 



reward to the man who would discover for him 

 a new pleasure ; surely we moderns have found 

 one in our new-born love for Nature's greater 

 works — the blue glaciers and soaring peaks 

 of the Alps ; the vast snow-caps and sombre 

 fjords of Norway ; the jagged pinnacles and 

 forest-clad cliffs of this volcanic island. 



Yet as we gaze to-day, the 4th of January, 

 1909 — our minds full of the Sicilian catas- 

 trophe — across the vast cauldron of the Metade 

 valley to the fire-scarred crags of Arriero and 

 the Torres, perhaps there mingles with our 

 admiration some remnant of the ancient feeling 

 of horror at such evidence of the terrific and 

 ruthless forces of Nature. This island stands 

 six thousand feet high, amid sea-depths more 

 than twice as great. It has been piled up on 

 the ocean's bed by a series of eruptions repeated 

 again and again, sometimes in rapid succession, 

 sometimes at long intervals, over a period of 

 time to be reckoned by tens of thousands of 

 years. Earthquakes have riven the layers 

 of solid rock and filled the fissures with lava, 

 now to be seen in the form of dykes inter- 

 secting the highest hills. To earthquakes are 

 due the vast rendings of the rock which 



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