THE ORDEAL BY FIRE. 33 



and, on suffering it to cool under circumstances similar to 

 those in which the rock has been placed, it resumes its 

 rock-like aspect. Marks of heat are all about these gran- 

 ites and their trappean associates. Wherever they have 

 come in contact with rocks of sedimentary origin, the lat- 

 ter are scorched and reddened. In many cases they have 

 been actually fused. A sandstone has been converted into 

 quartz; a shale into a micaceous, semi-crystalline bed; a 

 limestone into statuary marble ; and all the vestiges of liv- 

 ing forms which these strata inclosed have been withered 

 up and dissipated by the touch of fire. 



These underlying crystalline masses are not confined to 

 the deep-seated regions of the earth's crust. We find them 

 thrusting their heads up through the ruptured strata which 

 repose upon their flanks. Higher even than the highest 

 summits formed by the stratified rocks, these foundation 

 masses rear their bold granite heads. From these cold, 

 serene altitudes they look clown with dignified complacence 

 upon the fury of the tempest which brings consternation 

 to the landscape below, but fails to ascend to those frigid, 

 breathless summits which every living thing has equally 

 failed to scale. 



Some of these venerable domes were reared before ever 

 a particle of sediment had been produced, or even the 

 world-embracing sea had descended from the regions of 

 space around the earth. From their high stations they 

 have watched the procession of all subsequent events ; and, 

 while race after race has appeared and disappeared, they 

 have stood calm spectators, unchanged by the myriad vi- 

 cissitudes of eternity. Others were still the level floor of 

 the ocean when the oldest sediments began to accumulate 

 upon them. In some subsequent age a mighty force has 

 raised them with their load of sediments above the level of 

 the sea. The tempests of succeeding ages have partially 



B 2 



