The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1881-06-02

That help to ripen the fruits and flowers.
$50 gladden. the day with your blissful song;
Sing on while you may, dear, sweet and strong!
Make sure Of your moment Of pure delight,
No matter what trials may come before night"
Celia Tharter, in Wide Arake.
Mountain Peaks.
When the world was comparatively
young, aud people were contented with
legends and myths concerning the Won
ders of creation, just as children like
fairy stories, it was the common belief
that mountains were the work of gods
and genii, who hurled them down from
heaven, and allowed them to fall by
chance, or else raised them as mighty
pillars destined to bear the vaults OF the
skies. The Htans, who were not gods.
threw down all the mountains of Thes-
sally in order to use them again for build
ing up the ramparts round Olympus.
Another story is that a giantess Of the
North had filled her apron with little hills
and dropped than at certain distances
that she might recognize her way. And
still another, from the other end OF the
earth, is that Vishnu, one day, seeing a
young girl asleep beneath the suns too
ardent rays, took up a mountain, and
held it poised upon his fnger-tips to
shelter the beautiful sleeper. This, the
legend tells us, was the origin of sun
shades. Nor was it even always neces-
sary for gods and giants to lit up the
mountains in order to @move them; the
latter obeyed mere sign. Stones has,
tened to listen to the strains of Orpheus'
Tyre; mountains stood erect to hear
Apollo. 1t was thus that Helicon, tile
home of the Muses., took its birth.
Strange as aro these stories, they az.
no more wonderful than the actual fact
that, under the direction OF the Creator
the two great giants, fire and water,
have been and still are at work con-
stl1lcting mountains, slowly, it is true,
and not by any sudden upheaval, as the
lovers of the marvellous would have it
to be, but none the less surely.
While wandering over the surface Of
the globe, and carefully observing its
natural phenomena, we sec that mount
aims are the slow growth Of ages. When
IN insular or continental mass some
hundreds or thousands of yards high re-
ceives rain in abundance, its slopes
gradually become indented with "a.
vines, dales, valleys; the uniform sur
face of the plateau is cut into peaks,
ridges, pyramids; scooped out into am
phitheaters, basins, precipices systems
of mountains appear by degrees wher-
ever the level ground has rolled down to
any enormous extent. Inaddition to these
external causes which change plateaus
into mountains, slow transformations in
the interior OF the earth are also being ac-
compGshed, bringing about vast exca-
vations. Those Woodworking men who,
hammer in hand, go for many years
among the mountains in order to study
their form and structure, observe in the
lower beds of marine formation, which
constitute the non-crystalline portion Of
the mountains, gigantic rents or assures
extending thousands Of yards in length.
Masses millions Of yards thick have beer
completely raised up again by these
shocks, or turned Us completely upside
down, 30 that what was formerly the sur
face has now become the bottom. And
in this way have been revealed the crys-
talline rocks. Plication, or folding, is
also an important feature in the history
OF the earth. By this process, subjected
to slow pressure, the rock, the clay, the
layers of sandstone, the veins of metal,
have all been folded up like piece of
cloth, and the folds thus formed become
mountains and valleys.
One Of the most interesting features
IN the study Of mountains is the discov-
cry OF fossils, by which the naturalist
accurately determines the age Of rocks.
Millions of these remains of animal and
vegetable life have been preserved. OF
course the tissues Of flesh and drops of
blood or sap are gone, but in their stead
are particles Of stone which have kept
the form, and sometimes even the color,
OF the creature destroyed. Within the
thickness of these stones are shells of
molusks, disks, spheres, spines, cylin-
ders in astounding numbers; we see the
skeletons Of fish with their fins and
scales, the wing-sheaths of insects, and
even footprints upon the hard rock,
too, which was formerly the shifting
sand of the beach, we find the impress
sion of drops of rain, and the inter-
sect'ng ripple marks traced by wavelets
on the shore. These fossils which lived
millions of years ago in the mud of
oceanic abysses are now met at every
mountain height. They are to be seen
on most of the Pyrenees, they constitute
whole Alps, they are recognized upon
the Caucasus and Cordilleras.
The wealth contained in mountains in
the shape Of silver and gold ore and
precious stones has ever been, like the
magic thread of the labyrinth, leading
miners and geologists into tho depths of
their caverns. Formerly it was supposed
to be an easy matter to reach these
riches. All that a man needed was what
was called "luck" and the favor of the
gods. Boldly selling some opportunity,
such as the rolling away of stone from
a crevice, he had but to mutter some
magic words, creep into a dark passage,
and find himself beneath vanltad roof