398 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



ing-place for man. But, during geologic ages unnumbered, 

 the powers of water have been wrestling with the powers 

 of fire. Rains and floods have been tearing down what 

 fire had built. The energies of fire have been wasting ; 

 the earthquake and the volcano have been stricken with 

 the palsy of age. Old Ocean, however, is still in his youth. 

 The volcano had been smitten with decrepitude even before 

 the ocean had its birth. The denuding and destroying 

 agencies of Nature have gained the ascendency, and, in the 

 inevitable order of things, are destined to retain it. 



Let us glance at the labors of water in leveling the ine- 

 qualities which ancient volcanic energy had long ago cre- 

 ated upon the surface of our planet. Throughout the whole 

 extent of the circumambient sea, the tireless surge is gnaw- 

 ing at the rock-bound shore, and mouthful by mouthful 

 the continents and the islands are being swallowed up. 

 The sediment which every summer shower washes down 

 the hill-side is so much material taken from the hill-top and 

 deposited in the valley. The deep mould of the alluvial 

 fiat is made up of the spoils of the adjacent declivities. 

 By as much as the valley is raised, the hills are lowered. 

 The turbid waters of a winter stream are hurrying off with 

 a freight of sediment stolen from a hundred townships. 

 The mud which settles in my glass of river water upon a 

 Mississippi steam-boat is a mouthful of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains — or perchance of the Alleghanies — or, what is still 

 more probable, it is a whole museum of soils, gathered from 

 the fertile farms of New York and Pennsylvania — from the 

 sandy cliffs of the Great Kenawha — from the clayey slopes 

 of Cincinnati — from the slimy borders of Lake Pepin — from 

 the melon-patch of a Cheyenne squaw, and from the beet- 

 ling cliffs of the far-off Yellowstone. Of what part of the 

 country is not this slime the washing? From month to 

 month, and from year to year, and from age to age, this 



