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Amid the melancholy gloom; and wild
These rocky hills, and cliffs, and gulfs; but far
More beautiful and wild the things that greet
The wanderer in our world of light-the stars
Floating on high, like islands of the bless'd-
The autumn sunsets, glowing like the gate
Of far-off Paradise-the gorgeous clouds,
On which the glories of the earth and sky
Meet and commingle-earth's unnumbered flowers
All turning up their gentle eyes to heaven-
The birds, with bright wings glancing in the sun,
Filling the air with rainbow miniatures—
The green old forests, surging in the gale-
The everlasting mountains, on whose peaks
The setting sun burns like an altar flame-
And ocean, like a pure heart, rendering back
Heaven's perfect image, or in his wild wrath
Heaving and tossing like the stormy breast
Of a chained giant in his agony.-GEORGE D. PRENTICE.
14 MAS'-TO-DON, an animal much like the ele-
phant, now extinct.
See p.
469.

1 FRET'-TED, formed into raised work.

2 STYG'-I-AN, dark; pertaining to the river Styx, a fabulous river of the lower world, which was to be crossed in passing to the regions of the dead.

3 Є'OR'-RI-DORS, gallery-like passages.

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5 BE-LEA'-GUERED, studded with; surrounded by, as by an army that beleaguers a city. CHER'-U-BIM, the plural of cherub. Here meaning the stars. See Genesis, iii., 24.

LESSON XI.-AVALANCHES AND GLACIERS.

1. VAST masses of snow, which accumulate on the precipitous sides of mountains, being frequently disturbed from their positions, roll or slide down to lower levels.

Hark! the rushing snow!

The sun-awakened avalanche! whose mass,
Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered there
Flake after flake; in heaven-defying minds

As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth

Is loosened, and the nations echo round,

Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now.—SHELLEY.

2. Immense masses of earth and rock, also, loosened by the rains or by the thawing of the frosts, are precipitated down the mountain steeps, sometimes sweeping before them whole forests, and overwhelming villages in the valleys beneath. Such rolling or sliding masses, whether of snow, or of earth and rocks, are called avalanches. Such, also, are mountain-slides, which are a constant terror to the inhabitants of the narrow Alpine valleys.

3. The name of glaciers is given to those immense masses of ice which accumulate on the peaks and slopes, but in the greatest quantities in the upper valleys of lofty mountains. Although those parts of the mountains which are above the line of congelation are covered with perpetual snow, yet this

snow, being partially thawed during the summer months, is, on the approach of winter, converted into ice, thus constituting what is called a glacier. Yet the glacier ice does not resemble that found in ponds and rivers; not being formed in layers, but consisting of small grains or crystals of congealed snow, it has neither the compactness, the solidity, nor the transparency of river ice.

4. The glacier ice, descending by a thousand channels along the slopes of the mountains into the valleys, accumulates there in vast beds or fields, presenting, where the descent of the valley is gradual, a very level surface, and with few crevices; but where there is a rapid or rugged declivity the surface is rent with numerous, and often deep and dangerous chasms, and covered with elevations of icy peaks which are sometimes one or two hundred feet high. These glaciers not unfrequently work their way gradually down into the lower valleys.

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5. This is particularly the case in the valley of Chamouni, where the singular spectacle is presented of huge pyramids of ice of a thousand fantastic forms in juxtaposition with the most luxuriant pastures, or towering in majestic grandeur in the midst of verdant forests. "The snow-white masses," says Lyell, are often relieved by a dark background of pines, as in the valley of Chamouni; and they are not only surrounded with abundance of the wild rhododendron in full bloom, but they encroach still lower into the region of cultivation, and trespass on fields where the tobacco-plant is flourishing by the side of the peasant's hut."

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An Alpine Glacier.

6. The lower extremities of these glaciers are sometimes excavated by the melting of the ice into the form of immense grottoes, adorned with the finest stalactic crystallizations,

whose brilliant azure tints are reflected on the foaming streams and torrents which generally issue from these caverns, forming altogether so beautiful and imposing a picture as to defy the most faithful pencil to portray it accurately. These scenes are beautifully described by Coleridge in his

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALLEY OF CHAMOUNI. a. "Ye ice falls'! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain

7.

Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge':
a. Motionless torrents! silent cataracts'!
Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen full moon'? Who băde the sun
Clothe you with rainbows'? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet'?
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,

b. Answer! and let the ice plains echo God!

God! sing, ye meadow streams', with gladsome voice'!
Ye pine groves', with your soft and soul-like sounds'!
And they, too,' have a voice', yon piles' of snow',
b. And in their perilous fall shall thunder God!"

8. It is known that the great glacier beds of Switzerland move gradually and silently down the valleys at the rate of about twenty-five feet annually-a phenomenon which has long been an interesting subject of scientific investigation. "Philosophers and naturalists," says Brande, "have attributed the downward movement of a glacier to various causes; but by far the most prevalent opinion respecting it is that of Saussure, who maintained it was nothing more than a slipping upon itself, occasioned by its own weight. On the other hand, M. Agassiz ascribes this motion to the expansion of the ice, resulting from the congelation of the water which has filtered into it and penetrated its cavities; while M. R. Mallet is inclined to attribute it to the hydrostatic pressure of the water which flows at the bottom, and makes rents in the mass."

9. The inhabitants of the plains, reposing in almost uninterrupted security from that "war of the elements" which nature ever wages in more elevated regions, seldom realize the many dangers from avalanches of snow, and ice, and rocks, and mountain torrents, to which the "dwellers of the hills" are almost constantly exposed. To their reflections we commend the following picture, which has had many a counterpart in the Scottish Highlands, in the upper Swiss valleys, and in all mountain regions where man plants his dwelling. It is but a few years since that an entire family of nine per

a, a. The direct address, when exclamatory, takes the falling inflection.
b, b. Good examples of the rhetorical pause of suspension. See page 22.

sons, residing in a cottage at the celebrated "Notch," a narrow defile of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, was destroyed by an avalanche of earth and water, not one being left to relate the events of that night of terrors. What gives to the event a peculiarly mournful interest, the house from which they had fled, doubtless on the first alarm, was left uninjured amid the surrounding desolation.

LESSON XII.

-THE COTTAGE OF THE HILLS.

1. How sweetly 'neath the pale moonlight,
That slumbers on the woodland height,
Yon little cot appears, just seen
Amid the twining evergreen,
That fondly clings around its form.
Poor trembler, I have seen like thee,
Fond woman in her constancy,

E'en when the stormiest hour came on,
Cling closer to the much-loved one,
Nor dream, till every tie was parted,
That all within was hollow-hearted.
2. Yon little cot looks wondrous fair,
And yet no taper-light is there!
Say, whither are its dwellers gone?
Bird of the mountain, thou alone
Saw by the lightning from on high,
The mountain-torrent rushing by;
Beheld, upon its wild wave borne,
The tall pine from the hill-top torn.
Amid its roar, thine ear alone

Heard the shrill shriek-the dying groan-
The prayer that struggled to be free-
Breathed forth in life's last agony!
In vain-no angel form was there-
The wild wave drowned the sufferers' prayer
As down the rocky glen they sped—
The mountain spirits shriek'd and fled!

3. 'Twas morning; and the glorious sun
Shone on the work which death had done-
On shattered cliff, and broken branch,

The ruin of the avalanche!

And there lay one, upon whose brow
Age had not shed its wintry snow;

The fragment in whose clenched hand told

How firm on life had been his hold,

While the curled lip, the upturned eye,
Told of a father's agony!

And there beside the torrent's path,

Too pure, too sacred for its wrath,

Lay one, whose arms still closely pressed
An infant to her frozen breast.

The kiss, upon its pale cheek sealed,
A mother's quenchless love revealed.

4. Sire, mother, offspring-all were there,
Not one had 'scaped the conqueror's snare,
Not one was left to weep alone;

The "dwellers of the hill" were gone!
The wild bird, soaring far on high,
Beheld them with averted eye;
The forest prowler, as he pass'd,
Looked down upon the rich repast,
But dared not banquet.

"Twas a spell

Which bound them in that lonely dell;
And there they slept so peacefully,
That the lone pilgrim, passing by,
Had deemed them of a brighter sphere,
Condemned a while to linger here,
Whose pure eyes, sickening at the sight
Of sin and sorrow's withering blight,
Had sought, in tears, that silent glen,
And slumbered-ne'er to wake again.
5. And there they found them; stranger hands
Bore them to where yon cottage stands,
And there, one summer evening's close,
They left them to their last repose.
Such the brief page thy story fills,
Thou lonely 66 cottage of the hills."
E'en while I gaze, night's gloomy shade
Is gathering, as the moonbeams fade.
Around thy walk they faintly play-
They tremble-gleam-then flit away;
They fade-they vanish down the dell:
Lone "cottage of the hills"-farewell!-Anonymous.

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