rized; but the sand and clay to which
by one or the other process they are reducible, are both remarkable for
their purity. The clay is the finest and best that can be found for
porcelain; the sand often of the purest white, always lustrous and
bright in its particles. The result of this law is a peculiar aspect of
purity in the landscape composed of such rocks. It cannot become muddy,
or foul, or unwholesome. The streams which descend through it may indeed
be opaque, and as white as cream with the churned substance of the
granite; but their water, after this substance has been thrown down, is
good and pure, and their shores are not slimy or treacherous, but of
pebbles, or of firm and sparkling sand. The quiet streams, springs, and
lakes are always of exquisite clearness, and the sea which washes a
granite coast is as unsullied as a flawless emerald. It is remarkable to
what extent this intense purity in the country seems to influence the
character of its inhabitants. It is almost impossible to make a cottage
built in a granite country look absolutely miserable. Rough it may
be,--neglected, cold, full of aspect of hardship,--but it never can look
_foul_; no matter how carelessly, how indolently, its inhabitants may
live, the water at their doors will not stagnate, the soil beneath their
feet will not allow itself to be trodden into slime, the timbers of
their fences will not rot, they cannot so much as dirty their faces or
hands if they try; do the worst they can, there will still be a feeling
of firm ground under them, and pure air about them, and an inherent
wholesomeness in their abodes which it will need the misery of years to
conquer. And, as far as I remember, the inhabitants of granite countries
have always a force and healthiness of character, more or less abated
or modified, of course, according to the other circumstances of their
life, but still definitely belonging to them, as distinguished from the
inhabitants of the less pure districts of the hills.

These, then, are the principal characters of the compact crystallines,
regarded in their minor or detached masses. Of the peculiar forms which
they assume we shall have to speak presently; meantime, retaining these
general ideas touching their nature and substance, let us proceed to
examine, in the same point of view, the neighboring group of slaty
crystallines.

FOOTNOTES

[42] I am well aware that to the minds of many persons nothing bears
a greate