me invisible hand were casting dust abroad upon it, gives warning of
the anger that is to come, we may well imagine that there is indeed a
fear passing upon the grass, and leaves, and waters, at the presence of
some great spirit commissioned to let the tempest loose; but the terror
passes, and their sweet rest is perpetually restored to the pastures and
the waves. Not so to the mountains. They, which at first seem
strengthened beyond the dread of any violence or change, are yet also
ordained to bear upon them the symbol of a perpetual Fear: the tremor
which fades from the soft lake and gliding river is sealed, to all
eternity, upon the rock; and while things that pass visibly from birth
to death may sometimes forget their feebleness, the mountains are made
to possess a perpetual memorial of their infancy,--that infancy which
the prophet saw in his vision: "I beheld the earth, and lo, it was
without form and void, and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld
the mountains, and lo, they _trembled_; and all the hills _moved
lightly_."

Serviceable characters of the Slaty Crystallines.

1. Fitness for building with.

Sec. 7. Thus far may we trace the apparent typical signification of the
structure of those noble rocks. The material uses of this structure are
not less important. These substances of the higher mountains, it is
always to be remembered, were to be so hard as to enable them to be
raised into, and remain in, the most magnificent forms; and this
hardness renders it a matter of great difficulty for the peasant to
break them into such masses as are required for his daily purposes. He
is compelled in general to gather the fragments which are to form the
walls of his house or his garden from the ruins into which the mountain
suffers its ridges to be naturally broken; and if these pieces were
absolutely irregular in shape, it would be a matter of much labor and
skill to build securely with them. But the flattened arrangement of the
layers of mica always causes the rock to break into flattish fragments,
requiring hardly any pains in the placing them so as to lie securely in
a wall, and furnishing light, broad, and unflawed pieces to serve for
slates upon the roof; for fences, when set edgeways into the ground; or
for pavements, when laid flat.

2. Stability in debris.

Sec. 8. Farther: whenever rocks break into utterly irregular fragments, the
masses of debris which they form are not only excessively