A
friend who had been in a South American city during an earthquake told me
of the terror-stricken feeling which he experienced when he ran out of the
house in alarm, only to see buildings reeling and falling, and to feel the
solid earth itself rocking beneath his feet, while from beneath came a
rumbling noise, and a sound as of the clanking of chains. This trembling
and rocking of the earth has led savage nations to speak of some monster
underground turning his huge body. Shocks of earthquakes are occasionally
felt in England, and in the north-west of Ireland sheets of lava show that
volcanoes were once nearer home than we think. The Giants' Causeway, in
the north of Ireland, and Fingal's Cave, in the Island of Staffa, off the
north-west coast of Scotland, have been made by this lava having cooled and
split up into beautifully formed columns, which look like stone pillars.
"BEAUTIFUL THINGS.
"What millions of beautiful things there must be
In this mighty world!--who could reckon them all!
The tossing, the foaming, the wide flowing sea,
And thousands of rivers that into it fall.
"Oh, there are the mountains, half covered with snow,
With tall and dark trees, like a girdle of green,
And waters that wind in the valleys below,
Or roar in the caverns too deep to be seen.
"Vast caves in the earth, full of wonderful things,
The bones of strange animals, jewels and spars;
Or far up in Iceland, the hot boiling springs,
Like fountains of feathers or showers of stars!
"Here spread the sweet meadows, with thousands of flowers;
Far away are old woods, that for ages remain;
Wild elephants sleep in the shade of their bowers,
Or troops of young antelopes traverse the plain.
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