place (which have always been on a small scale), the sliding bed has been torn into a thousand fragments almost as soon as it began to move.[51] Sec. 23. And, finally, supposing a force found capable of breaking these beds in the manner required, what force was it that carried the fragments away? How were the gigantic fields of shattered marble conveyed from the ledges which were to remain exposed? No signs of violence are found on these ledges; what marks there are, the rain and natural decay have softly traced through a long series of years. Those very time-marks may have indeed effaced mere superficial appearances of convulsion; but could they have effaced all evidence of the action of such floods as would have been necessary to carry bodily away the whole ruin of a block of marble leagues in length and breadth, and a quarter of a mile thick? Ponder over the intense marvellousness of this. The bed at _c_ (Fig. 18) must first be broken through the midst of it into a sharp precipice, without at all disturbing it elsewhere; and then all of it beyond _c_ is to be broken up, and carried perfectly away, without disturbing or wearing down the face of the cliff at _c_. And yet no trace of the means by which all this was effected is left. The rock stands forth in its white and rugged mystery, as if its peak had been born out of the blue sky. The strength that raised it, and the sea that wrought upon it, have passed away, and left no sign; and we have no words wherein to describe their departure, no thoughts to form about their action, than those of the perpetual and unsatisfied interrogation,-- "What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? And ye mountains, that ye skipped like lambs?" FOOTNOTES [49] How far, is another question. The sand which the stream brings from the bottom of one eddy in its course, it throws down in the next; all that is _proved_ by the above trial is, that so many tons of material are annually carried down by it a certain number of feet. [50] _Nearly_; that is to say, not quite vertical. Of the degree of steepness, we shall have more to say hereafter. [51] The Rossberg fall, compared to the convulsions which seem to have taken place in the higher Alps, is like the slip of a paving stone compared to the fall of a tower. CHAPTER XIII. OF THE SCULPTURE OF MOUNTAINS:--SECONDLY, THE CENTRAL PEAKS.