264 IN STARRY REALMS. 



in an hour it may have dissolved into the transparent 

 vapour from which it had been originally condensed. We 

 are apt to contrast the evanescent cloud with the great 

 mountain by which it was gathered. The mountain itself 

 seems the ideal of stability. For thousands of years it has 

 lasted, for thousands of years it seems destined to endure ; 

 but when sufficient time is allowed, the mountain is no 

 more permanent than the cloud. The avalanche that 

 thunders down its side is only a somewhat vigorous indi- 

 cation of the agencies that are incessantly tending to bear 

 down the mighty mass. The Matterhorn of to-day will 

 assuredly vanish in time just as many other mighty 

 mountains have done in the course of geological history. 



Indeed it may be remarked that nature on a grand scale 

 exhibits no qualities of permanence. The Alps may last 

 longer than the ruins of Palmyra, but everything that we 

 know of geology teaches us that the sea has rolled where 

 Mount Blanc now rears its head, and that for anything we 

 can tell it may do so again. For permanence in nature we 

 must look not to great planets ; we find it, if at all, only 

 in the atoms of matter. The little pulsating molecule, 

 too small to be visible in the most powerful microscope, 

 even if the object were a thousand times larger than it is, 

 seems to possess attributes qualifying it for indefinite 

 duration. 



The constellations are no doubt so far fixed that in the 

 course of a lifetime, or even in the lifetime of a nation, 

 they undergo but little change. The Orion at which Job 

 looked was almost the Orion of our skies to-night. I say 

 almost, because when close examination is made it will be 

 found that the stars in the constellations are gradually 



