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In the climate of the Catskills the rock-masses of the Colorado would crumble much more rapidly than they do here. The lines of many of these natural temples or fortresses are still more lengthened and attenuated than those of the Temple of Isis, appearing like mere skeletons of their former selves.
The roots of these monarchs of the forest had twined themselves around rocks of every size and shape, some of them massive bowlders, but when the storm came, the purchase, or leverage of the tall trees was so great that these heavy rock-masses were pulled out of place and lifted up as the trees crashed over to their fall. Now we came to a stretch of perfect virgin forest.
And throughout the 'Sassetto' there reigned a peculiar and delicious coolness the blended breath of mountain and forest. The smooth path that Eleanor and Lucy had been following wound in and out among the strange rock-masses, bearing the signs of having been made at great cost and difficulty. Soon, also, benches of grey stone began to mark the course of it at frequent intervals.
Mud Volcanoes, Geysers, and Hot Springs. Our usual impression of a volcano is indicated in the title of "burning mountain," so often employed, a great fire-spouting cone of volcanic debris, from which steam, lava, rock-masses, cinder-like fragments, and dust, often of extreme fineness, are flung high into the air or flow in river-like torrents of molten rock.
When to this awful sound there were added the intermittent explosions, the horrid crackling of millions of rock-masses meeting in the air, and the bubbling up of molten lava verily it did not require the imagination of a Dante to see in all this the very vomiting of Gehenna!
When to this awful sound there were added the intermittent explosions, the horrid crackling of millions of rock-masses meeting in the air, and the bubbling up of molten lava verily it did not require the imagination of a Dante to see in all this the very vomiting of Gehenna!
It was indeed a fortunate circumstance, that after studying some excellent examples of recent volcanic rocks, he proceeded to examine in South America many fine illustrations of the older igneous rock-masses, and especially of the most highly crystalline types of the same, and then on his way home had opportunities of reviving the impression made upon him by the fresh and unaltered volcanic rocks.
The correspondence between the Hetch Hetchy walls in their trends, sculpture, physical structure, and general arrangement of the main rock-masses and those of the Yosemite Valley has excited the wondering admiration of every observer. We have seen that the El Capitan and Cathedral rocks occupy the same relative positions In both valleys; so also do their Yosemite points and North Domes.
But the fantastic grandeur of the place cannot be described in words. The pencil of the artist must be trusted. I can vouch that he has not in the least exaggerated the slenderness and steepness of the rock-masses. One of them, it is said, has never been climbed; unless a myth which hangs about it is true.
Some of these solid materials are evidently fragments of the rock-masses, through which the volcanic fissure has been rent; these fragments have been carried upwards by the force of the steam-blast and scattered over the sides of the volcano.
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