MACKIE — BUSKIN" ON TIIE SAYOT ALPS. 



323 



permeating play and motion, sometimes filled with water, sometimes 

 with vapour, with gelatinous flint, with metal-ore. We may have a 

 crag-glacier, measurable in depth by miles instead of fathoms, 

 stiffened with bands of agate and flexible with fibres of iron ; flexible, 

 at all events, by its own molecular or fragmentary division, and assum- 

 ing new dimensions or flowing into new channels through gradations 

 which are immeasurable, and in times of which human life — we 

 might almost say human history — forms no appreciable unit. 

 Having dealt with the substance of the mountain, Mr. Ruskin goes 

 on to the formation. Taking its collective rock-strata as so many 

 original sea-bottoms level and flat, he seeks to find out how the 

 Alpine mountain assumed its present rugged, dislocated form. We 

 do not say Alpine mountains, for such mighty monuments are not to 

 be read at once ; no eagle eye could read these wonders at a glance? 

 with secrets hidden by fallen debris, and records buried and wrapped 

 up in the folds and bends of a gigantic earth- mantle. Mr. E/Uskin 

 found a portion and a corner of the magnificent Alps of Savoy suf- 

 ficient to task his skill and knowledge. " There are," said he, " the 

 mountain which is cut by streams or by more violent forces out of 

 a mass of elevated land, just as you cut a pattern in thick velvet or 

 cloth ; and there is the mountain produced by the wrinkling or fold- 

 ing of the land itself, as the more picturesque masses of drapery are 

 produced by its folds. Be clear in separating these two conditions." 



It is something wonderful to think of such slow but perfect plas- 

 ticity in rock, — to see, in the mind's eye, particle pushing particle, and 

 particle after particle yielding to the pressure through ages that man's 

 race cannot count, lifting, rising, surging so slowly and solemnly, that 

 no eye can perceive the motion, no ear detect the slightest grating in 

 its onward rush ; for rush it is, although so slow and silent. " There 

 are," Mr. Ruskin continued, " two ways in which this folding of the 

 hills may be effected. You may have folds suspended or folds com- 

 pressed. If underneath, a mass comes up which sustains the folds, — 

 a pendant wave ; but if the force be lateral, you have a compressed 

 wave. And observe this further distinction : — if a portion be raised 

 by a force from beneath, unless the beds be as tenacious as they are 

 ductile, they will be simply torn up and dragged out of shape at that 

 place, and on each side the country will be undisturbed. But if they 

 are pushed laterally into shape, the force of the thrust must be com- 

 municated through them to beds beyond; nay, the rock which im- 

 mediately receives the shock may, if harder than those beyond it, 



