Even nowadays there remain many peaks in the Dolomites yet untrodden by the foot of, at least, modern man, as well as numberless delightful paths amid exquisite scenery, where flowers carpet the earth and tiny streams make their water-music. Along which by-ways, from sunrise to sunset, one can travel amid the great silence of the hills without meeting a single fellow-wayfarer. Many of the summits are upwards of 10,000 feet in height, and they who first climb their rocky walls, deeply fissured sides, and ice- and snow-clad peaks, will have accomplished tasks not inferior to those performed by the intrepid mountaineers of the past who have scaled the great heights of the Alps or the Himalayas. [Sidenote: THEORIES OF ORIGIN] Ever since geologists have speculated and argued concerning the origin and nature of natural phenomena, there has been a conflict of opinion amongst Tyrolese, German, and French geologists in particular concerning the Dolomites. But although speculations have been many, and various plausible theories have from time to time been advanced, it may, we think, safely be said that none have been absolutely proved or universally accepted. Baron Richthofen is perhaps the ablest exponent of what is commonly known as the Coral Reef theory of origin, and this has of late years been largely accepted by leading geologists of different nationalities. [Illustration: ALPENWIESE, ON THE SEISER ALP] Baron Richthofen bases his theory chiefly upon the following points: "(A) The isolated nature of the mountains themselves, and the fact that their sides are frequently so steep and clear-cut as to preclude any suggestion that they have been so made by the ordinary processes of attrition, and that in general form they resemble atolls. (B) That in their substance there are often found fossils and deposits of a strictly marine character very closely resembling those found in coral reefs; in addition to which the configuration shown by many of the peaks is almost exactly similar to that found in the coral reefs of to-day, with precipitous and almost perfectly vertical sides, where they would have been (if the coral-reef theory is the correct one) constantly scoured by the tide, and with much less precipitous sides on the inner or lee side. (C) The fact that there is no trace discernible of any volcanic origin. (D) They also, in their general shape and lines, enclose spaces in a similar way to that which coral reefs invariably enclose." There are many other points of resemblance advanced in Mr. G. C. Churchill's exhaustive "Physical Description of the Dolomite District," into which it is, however, unnecessary here to enter more deeply.