3 26 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Soc 



of the adjoining rock, so that the minerals which may have been 

 subsequently deposited in the new crack or fissure will be partly 

 in the old line and partly amid the newly broken and adjacent 

 rocks. The rocks very fairly represent social life. Kevolutions 

 and reactions the conflicting operations of the court and the 

 populace, the priests and the people, each sometimes gaining and 

 each sometimes losing the ascendancy have jostled men into 

 curious positions. Men utterly different in their nature are in 

 closest contact ; and those whom you would often look for at 

 the top are at the bottom, the man of tin being where you 

 hoped to discover him of gold, and all being strangely mixed 

 up with the world's dross and rubbish. The processes by which 

 all this came to pass are no doubt ascertainable ; but, as in the 

 case of the rocks, exceedingly difficult just at present. So we 

 must accept the fact, and await in confidence the explaining 

 day. MA. 



^C. Social Elevation Perilous to Some. 



It is not every man who can live on the elevated places of 

 society. The social mountains are incompatible with the 

 organisations intended to thrive down in the plains of common- 

 place life. The magisterial mountain, the political mountain, the 

 religious mountain, furnish many examples of the curious pheno- 

 mena which have been developed in certain of the vulgar tribes 

 which have endeavoured to flourish on their inviting heights. 

 "We have all our own places in creation, and are only safe when 

 we are keeping them. It is so with men, it is so with animals. 

 Some animals which -flourish well and happily in the plain become 

 ailing or die on the mountain. For example : Von Tschudi 

 makes the singular remark that on the Cordilleras, at elevations 

 of more than 1 2,000 feet, delicate breeds of dogs and the European 

 domestic cat are exposed to a particular kind of mortal disease. 

 Humboldt records that innumerable attempts have been made 

 to keep cats as domestic animals in the town of Cerro de Pasco, 

 lying at an elevation of 14,100 feet above the sea's level; but 

 such endeavours have invariably been frustrated, as both cats and 

 dogs have died in convulsions at the end of a few days. The 

 cats, after being attacked by convulsive fits, attempt to climb the 



