But in the midst of this outer
steadfastness we know there is incessant motion and change. Ever and
anon, avalanches are falling from yonder peaks. These cliff-bound
glaciers, seemingly wedged and immovable, are flowing like water and
grinding the rocks beneath them. The lakes are lapping their granite
shores and wearing them away, and every one of these rills and young
rivers is fretting the air into music, and carrying the mountains to the
plains. Here are the roots of all the life of the valleys, and here more
simply than elsewhere is the eternal flux of nature manifested. Ice
changing to water, lakes to meadows, and mountains to plains. And while
we thus contemplate Nature's methods of landscape creation, and, reading
the records she has carved on the rocks, reconstruct, however
imperfectly, the landscapes of the past, we also learn that as these we
now behold have succeeded those of the pre-glacial age, so they in turn
are withering and vanishing to be succeeded by others yet unborn.
But in the midst of these fine lessons and landscapes, I had to remember
that the sun was wheeling far to the west, while a new way down the
mountain had to be discovered to some point on the timber line where I
could have a fire; for I had not even burdened myself with a coat.
Pages:
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92