in raising the continent, began to find
vent in every weak spot caused by its elevation.

"Here where we stand, in this great crack between the granite and the
sandstone, they broke out with all their wildest fury; hurling stones
high in the air, making mid-day dark with clouds of ashes, and pouring
streams of lava far and wide.

"So the country was desolated by volcanoes, but only desolated that it
might grow greener and richer than ever, with a new and hitherto
unknown fertility; for, as the surface of the lava disintegrated, a new
soil was found, containing all the elements of the old one, and many
more. These are your black clay, and your red burnt soil, which, I take
it, are some of the richest in the world.

"Then our old volcano, our familiar Mirngish, in whose crater we have
been feasting, grew still for a time, for many ages probably; but after
that I see the traces of another eruption; the worst, perhaps, that he
ever accomplished.

"He had exhausted himself, and gradually subsided, leaving a perfect
cup or crater, the accumulation of the ashes of a hundred eruptions;
nay, even this may have been filled with water, as is Mount Gambier,
which you have not seen, forming a lake without a visible outlet; the
water draining off at that level where the looser scoriae begin.

"But he burst out again, filling this great hollow with lava, till the
accumulation of the molten matter broke through the weaker part of the
wall, and rolled away there, out of that gap to the northward, and
forming what you now call the 'stony rises,'--turning yon creek into
steam, which by its explosive force formed that fantastic cap of rocks,
and, swelling into great bubbles under the hot lava, made those long
underground hollows which we now know as the caves of Bar-ca-nah.

"Is he asleep for ever? I know not. He may arise again in his wrath and
fill the land with desolation; for that earthquake we felt yesterday
was but a wild throe of the giant struggling to be free.

"Let us hope that he may not break his chains, for as I stand here
gazing on those crimson Alps, the spirit of prophecy is upon me, and I
can see far into the future, and all the desolate landscape becomes
peopled with busy figures.

"I see the sunny slopes below me yellow with trellissed vines. They
have gathered the vintage, and I hear them singing at the wine-press.
They sing that the exhausted vineyards of the old world yield no wine
so rare, so rich, as the fr