The union Democrat., 1870-07-09
NUMBER 5.
Table yEosnrain.


known as Pulpit Rock oyerIookinc James.
town, Satan might in the oldeu time have
taken the Christ and tempted him with All
the kingdoms the Earth. For many king.
doms were then compressed within conrara.
lively small bounds and the range ofcountrv.
to be seen from Table Mountain extending
Eastward to the ever lone and snow clad
peaks beyond the Yosemite, Westward over
the misty plains to the Coast Range, North
to Bear Mountain ard the confines of ANA
dor County and South to the distant hills of
Mariposa, is almost as large as the entire
land of Canaan. You may from it's level
parapes see jamestown and afar off Montezu-
ma, Chinese Camp, Yorktown, Poverty Hill
and Algerine and even traces of Columbia
and Sonora and Shaw's Flat struggling out
of TIE hills in which they are nestled You
may consider these the "cites Of the Earth"
but small is the temptation to fall down and
whorship the Devil to enjoy their possession
For their trade is stagnant their real estate
scarcely worth taxes, their revenues d;mir-
ished, half of their stores closed, aud tenant
ed by rats, mice and spiders, their quartz
mills silent and the sound of the grinding has
wnxed low. The silver cords are loosed and
our golden bows are broken, shipped East.
and melted up. They lay in the vaults Of
Wall street.
| Yet still stands ever telling mighty his
tory. Ages ago, when men had perhaps
4
caves and bowers and rude piles of stone, ur-
conscious perhaps of the powers and capaci-
ties and glorious desting of his race, this land
was torn and shoken by awful and-continued
throes. Where the mountains rise Eastward.
all was smoke and flame and deep awful
earth musterings and groaning. Mountains
sunk and rose. The earth floors of granite
were pushed up and back and with many q
deep hollow creak end groan, they were tit
led and bent to every conceivable angle.
There opened great months and gaps swsl-
lowing lakes and hills and forests, then
closing and in the depths grinding the rocky
acres to broken fragments, rubbe and pow
der,' opening again as the land swayed and
beloved and shook with the deep, internal
fiery agony and vomiting thick, muddy boil
ing bubbling, gigantic rivers and waves of
mortary congomerate, covering plain after
plain, and surging up mountain sides, euvel-
oping them in hot and sticky coats leaving
perhaps few hundred feet at top of ths
naked granite crest. Travel up the Eastern
slope toward the Rising Sun and such history
is written all about you. This burning and
smothering inundation poured over some pre-
cipice into a river. There was terrible hiss
and seeth and roar clouds of vapor envelon-
ed the country and darkened the Sun; the
river bed was filled; hot lava and mud COM
bined pushed their way down the stream;
the clear waters, the grassy banks ard
meadows and shady groves on either side
were smothered and buried by this volcanic
disagreement; the lava crust cooling on the
top molten and fluid underneath crept down
this ancient river toward the plains.
The disturbance ceased then came thou
sands and thousands of quiet centuries; new
rivers cut their way from the mountain tops;
the burnt and buried stream lay almost level
with the plain but sun and air and frost and
rain still as ever go on silently performing
their work; they crumble the softer rock
they turn it to soil grasses and trees and
flowers spring up, bloom and wither the
winter torrents come washing the earth from
gully to river so gradually is filed up the
Joaquin Basin; but the hard, igneous coat Of
the buried river, its basaltic sides, its gravel
ly cement resists the elements: lower and
lower as the unknown centuries come and 90
SINKS the surrounding country; Mountains
dwindle to hummocEs hummocks to depres-
sions the softer quartz veins fall to r;eces.
and decay; their precious contents fall out
from the stony setting in flake and grain. in
atom and nugget the gold is deposited over
gulch and fat; still the buried river in its
stony tomb remains intact; age after age
passes IT becomes moro and more prominent
and at last gigantic wall from two 10 FIVE
hundred feet in height, from Thousand TO
hi1een hundred feet in width and foil sixty
miles IN length stretches across the country,
It's Top level grassy parapet, which under
your tread resounds with mufled metalls
ciang as if great subterranean chambers lay
underneath, perhaps huge air bubbles form
ed as this gigantic casting was cooling in its
mould. So speaks the silent tongue OF our
Table Mountain.
PoKING Fun AT THE PoPE.-Among the .1eMr
d'esprit to which the Gcumenical Council
has given rise in Rome is the following new
Pdter Noster handed about among the Amer
leans. Even the Pope, who enjoys joke
thoroughly. it is said, might forgive the man
who uses the license of ink against him 80
yet dexterously
'.Our Father who art in Vatican: lnfalli-
BILE be thy name: Thy Temporal Sosereignity
come Thy will be done to Europe and Amer
lea as in Ireland. Give US this day our
tithes ana titles. and forgive us our trespass-
es as we give pleaary indulgence to those
who pay penitently unto us: And lead us
not into Ecumenical Councils. but deliver