Careful study
of the phenomena presented goes to show that the pre-glacial condition
of the range was comparatively simple: one vast wave of stone in which a
thousand mountains, domes, canons, ridges, etc., lay concealed. And in
the development of these Nature chose for a tool not the earthquake or
lightning to rend and split asunder, not the stormy torrent or eroding
rain, but the tender snow-flowers noiselessly falling through unnumbered
centuries, the offspring of the sun and sea. Laboring harmoniously in
united strength they crushed and ground and wore away the rocks in their
march, making vast beds of soil, and at the same time developed and
fashioned the landscapes into the delightful variety of hill and dale
and lordly mountain that mortals call beauty. Perhaps more than a mile
in average depth has the range been thus degraded during the last
glacial period,--a quantity of mechanical work almost inconceivably
great. And our admiration must be excited again and again as we toil and
study and learn that this vast job of rockwork, so far-reaching in its
influences, was done by agents so fragile and small as are these flowers
of the mountain clouds.
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