"Stop a moment," said Fern Fenwick, who for some moments had been examining the huge boulder which sheltered them, "Have you noticed the curious formation of this immense stone? How many hundreds of tons it may weigh, I hardly dare guess. Geologically speaking, it is a 'stranger rock,' not in any way related to the rocks of this mountain, nor of the mountains near here. It is a mammoth conglomerate of such an interestingly curious compound and of such flinty hardness. At the time of its formation enormous pressure, coupled with the most intense heat, must have molded this strange mass together. Coarse and fine gravel, smooth, round pebbles, from the size of a pigeon's egg to that of a two-hundred-pound boulder, are all jumbled together in great confusion, and so firmly cemented in this immense globular mass of that peculiar, tenacious clay of greenish gray color, which forms so large a part of the drift formation, and which is so widely distributed over the face of our globe--that strange, unaccountable, isolated and unrelated formation, which still remains an unsolved puzzle by our best geologists. I wish you to observe the long sides of this strange rock, especially where the exposed sides of the pebbles have been worn down smooth and even with the clay--how they are marked and striated by shallow grooves, all running in one direction as straight as though graven by rule. Is it possible that any freak or flood of the glacial period could have floated this huge rock to its resting place on the very summit of this high mountain, almost two thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea? Oh! tell me, ye listening mortals, or ye winged winds that blow and pull my ribbons so! whence came this stranger rock? how formed? and how were its smooth, worn sides so systematically engraved?" Fern Fenwick closed her series of queries with a gradually rising pitch and inflection in the ringing tones of her clear, musical voice. With figure erect, eyes flashing, cheeks glowing and hands uplifted, she seemed the personification of some priestess of science. Fillmore Flagg and George Gaylord gazed at her with the admiration of amazement. Mrs. Bainbridge exclaimed: "Why Fern Fenwick! How you do go on with such nonsense, to be sure. No doubt these gentlemen, from this time forward, will look at you as some scientific freak or geological professor of the female persuasion, but recently escaped from the walls of some famous college!" "Mrs. Bainbridge," said Fillmore Flagg, "of course we understand that you were joking in what you said just now: that you really admire the terse, clear, and wonderfully complete description of this strange rock by Miss Fenwick, quite as much as we do." Turning to Fern Fenwick, he continued: "I believe, Miss Fenwick, that I can throw some light on the puzzling questions you have so poetically propounded."