100 THE FAIRY-LAND OF SCIENCE. 
these forms, water and ice, and speak of them as 
sculptors. 
To understand why they deserve this name we must 
first consider what the work of a sculptor is. If you 
go into a statuary yard you will find there large 
blocks of granite, marble, and other kinds of stone, 
hewn roughly into different shapes ; but if you pass 
into the studio, where the sculptor himself is at work, 
you will find beautiful statues, more or less finished ; 
and you will see that out of rough blocks of stone he 
has been able to cut images which look like living 
forms. You can even see by their faces whether they 
are intended to be sad, or thoughtful, or gay, and by 
their attitude whether they are writhing in pain, or 
dancing with joy, or resting peacefully. How has all 
this history been worked out from the shapeless 
stone ? It has been done by the sculptor's chisel. A 
piece chipped off here, a wrinkle cut there, a smooth 
surface rounded off in another place, so as to give a 
gentle curve ; all these touches gradually shape the 
figure and mould it out of the rough stone, first into 
a rude shape and afterwards, by delicate strokes, into 
the form of a living being. 
Now, just in the same way as the wrinkles and curves 
of a statue are cut by the sculptor's chisel, so the hills 
and valleys, the steep slopes and gentle curves on the 
face of our earth, giving it all its beauty, and the 
varied landscapes we love so well, have been cut out 
by water and ice passing over them. It is true that 
some of the greater wrinkles of the earth, the lofty 
mountains, and the high masses of land which rise 
above the sea, have been caused by earthquakes and 
