n and drunk, and all the ladies had separately and
collectively declared that they were SO fond of the smell of tobacco in
the open air, we followed the Doctor, who led the way to the summit of
the hill.

I arrived last, having dragged dear fat old Mrs. Mayford up the
slippery steep. The Doctor had perched himself on the highest
flame-worn crag, and when we all had grouped ourselves below him, and
while the wind swept pleasantly through the grass, and rushed humming
through the ancient rocks, he in a clear melodious voice thus began:--

"Of old the great sea heaved and foamed above the ground on which we
stand; ay, above this, and above yon farthest snowy peak, which the
westering sun begins to tinge with crimson.

"But in the lapse of ten thousand changing centuries, the lower deeps,
acted on by some Plutonic agency, began to grow shallow; and the
imprisoned tides began to foam and roar as they struggled to follow the
moon, their leader, angry to find that the stillness of their ancient
domain was year by year invaded by the ever-rising land.

"At that time, had man been on the earth to see it, those towering Alps
were a cluster of lofty islands, each mountain pass which divides them
was a tide-swept fiord, in and out of which, twice in the day, age
after age, rushed the sea, bringing down those vast piles of water-worn
gravel which you see accumulated, and now covered with dense
vegetation, at the mouth of each great valley.

"So twenty thousand years went on, and all this fair champagne country
which we overlook became, first a sand-bank, then a dreary stretch of
salt saturated desert, and then, as the roar of the retiring ocean grew
fainter and fainter, began to sustain such vegetation as the Lord
thought fit.

"A thousand years are but as yesterday to Him, and I can give you no
notion as to how many hundred thousand years it took to do all this; or
what productions covered the face of the country. It must have been a
miserably poor region: nothing but the debris of granite, sandstone,
and slate; perhaps here and there partially fertilized by rotting
seaweed, dead fish and shells; things which would, we may assume, have
appeared and flourished as the water grew shallower.

"New elements were wanting to make the country available for man, so
soon to appear in his majesty; and new elements were forthcoming. The
internal fires so long imprisoned beneath the weight of the incumbent
earth, having done their duty