18 
the blue distance. The deep gorges, almost lost in haze, 
as we gazed downwards, showed, through the haze, some¬ 
thing of their gloomy recesses. Then came the thought 
that no mighty convulsions raised these monuments ; and 
the mind pained itself in contemplating the vast periods 
of time through which the aqueous agencies, the rain and 
the snow and the streams, had been at work in excavating 
the deep hollows, and carving the buttresses of the 
great hills. Yonder tiny rivulet, having its source in! j 
a spot which is usually white with snow, has cut that 
deep gorge, the spring at this point has worked a huge 
channel, and the running streams far below have broken 
through great masses of rock and shaped the mountains 
in the forms we see them. 
The once vast plateau, which, during a late geological 
period, was slowly upraised from the sea to a height 
exceeding the altitude of any of the existing peaks, has 
not been violently torn by plutonic forces, but has yielded 
gradually to the influences of the weather, and has been 
slowly broken up by the rains and the brooks. 
The narrow ridge extending from Mount Hotliam to 
the western spur of Mount Feathertop was easily traversed 
by our well-conditioned horses ; the day was bright, the 
ground was dry, and we did not hesitate to proceed even 
briskly in places that in bad weather a timid horseman 
would not venture to approach. This ridge, indeed, is 
quite narrow enough and dangerous enough to try the 
nerves of even experienced travellers. In ascending it 
we were astonished at the effects of denudation in one 
place. A small peak in front of us, over the eastern slope 
of which we passed, presented on the western side what 
might be called a fracture—a fracture as sharp and as 
jagged as that of a piece of broken porcelain. We 
