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zes that fan its brows, but a specimen of it adorns his her- 

 barium. Perhaps not a root draws nourishment and heal- 

 ing virtue from its soil, but its like or a description of it 

 enriches the collection of his Cabinet. Perhaps not an ani- 

 mal roams through these wilds ; not a bird warbles its ma- 

 tin notes of joy, or sings its vesper-hymn of praise, amidst 

 these umbrageous groves ; not a reptile crawls around these 

 rock-serrated ridges ; nor insect floats in the morning 

 beams that herald the approach of the "powerful king ot 

 day," or sports in the rays that leave their dewy kiss upon 

 the brow of this giant son of the everlasting hills (as Mght 

 throws around him her sable folds, inviting to repose,) that 

 he has not observed its habits, tracked its ways, learned its 

 instincts, and chronicled its history. Is there a rock up- 

 heaved from yonder summit that throws exultingly its 

 thunder-rifted crags to the sky, or that protrudes in stately 

 and proud disdain, from yonder iron-bound and beetling 

 cliffs, as though it held in contempt all smaller things ? — 

 He knew its class, its composition, its age. Is there -a 

 mineral that has been dug from these hills ; that has rolled 

 down from these ridgy steeps ; or been uncovered by the 

 torrents that rave and roar down these mountain sides ? — 

 He knew its form and family, its value and its uses. Hither 

 he brought the theodolite with its unerring precision to 

 compute angles ; the surveyors chain to measure distances ; 

 the compass to determine bearings ; the barometer to weigh 

 the atmosphere and the hygrometer to ascertain its humi- 

 dity. From all these elements of Scientific calculation as 

 developed by means and instruments that speak no lan- 

 guage but that of truth, simple, and naked truth — unmov- 

 ed from propriety by envy, unswayed by the whisperings 

 of ambition — he ascertained and proclaimed that this spot 

 on which we here stand — this glorious summit, raised above 

 the scenes of a toiling and weary world, was the highest 

 land in the United States, East of the Mississippi River! 



