n that is exhausted, as fit only to be
abandoned to sterility and desolation. But who can tell whether there
may not be in these boulders, these rocks, this sandy and unproductive
soil, unknown wealth, held in reserve to reward the researches of
science in its utilitarian explorations. I am not now speaking of
gold, or silver, or any other dross, which men have hitherto wasted
their toil to accumulate; but of new discoveries, and new purposes to
which these now useless things may be applied; discoveries which may
send the tide of emigration surging up from the valleys to mountain
regions like these. May it not be that science, while delving among
the wrecks of vanished ages, may stumble upon some new principle, or
combination of the elements of which these old rocks are composed,
that shall give them a value beyond that of the richest lowlands, and
make them the centre of a dense and cultivated population?"

"Your question," answered Spalding, "is suggestive. Did you ever think
what gigantic strides the world has made within the memory of men now
living, and who are yet unwilling to be counted as old? Look back for
only fifty years, and note what a stupendous leap it has taken! Where
then were the iron roads over which the locomotive goes thundering on
its mission of civilization? where the telegraph, that mocks at time
and annihilates space? Hark! there is a new sound breaking the
stillness of midnight, and startling the mountain echoes from their
sleep of ages! It is the scream of the steam-whistle, the snort of the
iron horse, the thunder of his hoofs of steel, rushing forward with
the speed of the wind, shaking the ground like an earthquake as he
moves. A new motor has been harnessed into the service of man, and
made to fly with his messages swifter than sound? It is the winged
lightning; and as it flashes along the wires stretched from city to
city, and across continents, carries with unerring certainty every
word committed to its charge. Ocean steamers have made but a ferriage
of seas. The photographic art has made even the light of the sun a
substitute for the pencil of the artist. Everywhere, in all the
departments of science, in every branch of the arts, improvement,
progress, has been going on with a sublimity of achievement unknown in
any age of the past. These things are mighty motors which push along
civilization, throwing a wonderful energy into the forward impulse of
the world. But remember, that though t