CHAPTER XII. 
EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES. 
UCH has been written of the effect upon the charac- 
_VJL ter and feelings of a people caused by constant 
dwelling among the more marked phenomena of Nature. 
It is a mistake to suppose that the eye sees all that is im¬ 
pressed on the retina, that the ear catches more than an 
insignificant share of the innumerable sounds falling cease¬ 
lessly on the tympanum, or that the mind interprets many 
of the marvels that each instant presents to it. Only the 
educated eye, the practised ear, the cultivated mind, can 
appreciate what the Creator has placed before it in this 
beautiful world whose wonders no human understanding, 
however taught, is capable of wholly comprehending. 
The worldly wisdom of the saying that “ familiarity 
breeds contempt ” is applicable to the greater portion of 
humanity ; and dwellers among the Alps cease to see, if 
indeed they ever saw, what strikes the dweller on the 
plain with awe as he gazes for the first time at the 
Jungfrau. To a thinking, studying man, familiarity is 
the mother of awe. 
In a region where the molecular forces, those mighty 
slaves of a Divine Will, are working out of doors, so to 
speak ; where from the summit of a volcanic peak one 
can count scores of others ranged on his right hand and 
on his left; where he can see, if he has opened the 
