Geologists tell us that a theory of catastrophes is
unphilosophical; but, whatever may be the scientific truth, our minds
are impressed as though we were witnessing the results of some
incredible convulsion. At Stonehenge we ask what human beings could have
erected these strange grey monuments, and in the mountains we
instinctively ask what force can have carved out the Matterhorn, and
placed the Wetterhorn on its gigantic pedestal. Now, it is not till we
reach some commanding point that we realise the amazing extent of
country over which the solid ground has been shaking and heaving itself
in irresistible tumult.
Something, it is true, of this last effect may be seen from such
mountains as the Rigi or the Faulhorn. There, too, one seems to be at
the centre of a vast sphere, the earth bending up in a cup-like form to
meet the sky, and the blue vault above stretching in an arch majestical
by its enormous extent. There you seem to see a sensible fraction of the
world at your feet. But the effect is far less striking when other
mountains obviously look down upon you; when, as it were, you are
looking at the waves of the great ocean of hills merely from the crest
of one of the waves themselves, and not from some lighthouse that rises
far over their heads; for the Wetterhorn, like the Eiger, Moench, and
Jungfrau, owes one great beauty to the fact that it is on the edge of
the lower country, and stands between the real giants and the crowd of
inferior, though still enormous, masses in attendance upon them.
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