I asked myself, as
on previous occasions, How was this colossal work performed? Who chiselled
these mighty and picturesque masses out of a mere protuberance of the
earth? And the answer was at hand. Ever young, ever mighty-with the vigor
of a thousand worlds still within him-the real sculptor was even then
climbing up the eastern sky. It was he who raised aloft the waters which
cut out these ravines; it was he who planted the glaciers on the mountain
slopes, thus giving gravity a plough to open out the valleys; and it is
he who, acting through the ages, will finally lay low these mighty
monuments, rolling them gradually seaward, sowing the seeds of continents
to be; so that the people of an older earth may see mould spread, and corn
wave over the hidden rocks which at this moment bear the weight of the
Jungfrau." And the Alps lie within twenty-four hours of London!
Tyndall's writings also contain many vivid descriptions of glaciers; those
"silent and solemn causeways ... broad enough for the march of an army in
line of battle and quiet as a street of tombs in a buried city.
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