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Show 34 BY PATH AND TRAIL. burst asunder the walls of their mountain prison and fought their way to freedom. Then, amid the roar of es caping steam, the gleam of lightning and the crash of thunder, the molten mass in riotous exultation rushed down the body of the monstrous hill, hissing like a thing alive and flooding the land with fire and smoke. Some awful cataclysm such as this must have occurred in the time and in the land of the patriarchs, in the days when Isaiah spoke to God, reminding him of the past, " When thou didst terrible things, which we looked not for. Thou earnest down and the mountains flowed down at thy pres ence. ' ' But the dominating feature of the terrifying scene was not so much its transcendent majesty and isolation as its air of great antiquity. Turning and looking up I saw a vast structure of adamant, of black gnessoid, shale and shist, traversed by dykes of granite that were old when the waters of the great deep submerged the domes of the highest mountains. Gazing upon these mighty hills, hoary with age, I asked aloud the portentous question of Solomon : " Is there anything of which it may be said, see, this is new; it hath already been of old time which was before us ? ' ' The measuring capacity of the mind is unequal to the demands of such magnitude, for there is here no standard adjustable to the mind; perspectives are illusive, distances are deceptive, for yonder cliff changes its color, shape and size as clouds of greater or lesser density approach it. It seems near, almost unto touch, yet the finger- stone which you throw toward it falls almost at your feet, for the cliff is full two miles beyond you. From the floor of the canyon to the sum mit of yonder hill is twelve times the height of the tallest monument in America. To acquire a sense of intimacy |