ude amid the stormy waters of the Firth
of Forth, the Bass Rock, once a scene of fiery confusion, of roaring
waves and heaving earthquakes, has formed alternately the prison where
religious liberty has been strangled, and the fortress where
patriotism has taken its last stand against the forces of the invader.
Palestine, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, and Scotland, the countries
that have had the most remarkable history, and have done most to
advance the human race, are distinguished above other countries for
their geological convulsions and revolutions. The Roman Forum is thus
but one specimen among numerous others of a law of Providence which
has associated the strife of nature with the strife of man, and caused
the ravages of the most terrible elements to prepare the way for the
highest development of the human race.

Between the Roman Forum and the valley beneath Edinburgh Castle we can
trace a striking resemblance, not only in their volcanic origin and
the connection between their geological history and their analogous
civil history, but also in the fact that they were both filled with
small lakes. Between the ridges of the old and new town of Edinburgh,
where the railway runs through Princes Street Gardens, there was in
the memory of many now living a considerable collection of water
called the North Loch. In like manner, in the hollow of the Roman
Forum there was originally a small lake, a relic of the numerous lakes
of the Campagna, which remained after the last elevation of the land,
and which existed pretty far on into the human period. It was fed by
three streams flowing from the Palatine, the Capitoline, and the
Esquiline Hills, which now run underground and meet at this point.

Let us picture to ourselves the appearance of this lake embosomed in
the hollow of its hills in the far-off pastoral times, when the
mountains and the high table-lands of Italy were the chosen territory
of those tribes whose property consisted chiefly in their flocks. The
hills of Rome, whose elevation was far more conspicuous in ancient
times than it is now, presented a precipitous front of dark volcanic
rock to the lake. Their slopes were covered with grass and with
natural copse-wood, intermixed with tall ilex trees, or umbrella
pines; while on their summits were little villages surrounded with
Cyclopean walls perched there not only for security, but also for the
healthier air, just as we see at the present day all over Italy. On
t