od when those strange and monstrous beasts
crowded in dense bands into these caves, driven thither perhaps by fear
and terror, and finding here their death; when again I go back to the
times when these caves were formed, and wide-spread floods covered the
land; then I seem to myself like a dream of futurity; like a child of
eternal peace. How quiet and peaceful, how mild and dear is out present
nature, when compared with violent and gigantic times! The mightiest
tempests, the most terrible earthquakes of our day, are but weak echoes
of the throes of that first birth. Perhaps also the animal and
vegetable kingdoms, and even the men who then existed, if any were
found on the different islands of the ocean, were of firmer and ruder
organization; at least we should not then be obliged to accuse the
traditions of a giant race of being mere poetic fancies."

"It is pleasant," said the old man, "to notice the gradual pacification
of nature. A concord ever becoming deeper, a more friendly intercourse,
reciprocal aid and encouragement, seem gradually to have been formed;
and we can look forward continually to better times. It may perhaps be
possible, that here and there a little of the old leaven is fermenting,
and that still more violent convulsions are to follow; yet these mighty
struggles for a free and harmonious existence are visible; and in this
spirit will every convulsion pass over and draw nearer to the great
goal. It may be that nature is no longer so fertile, that at present no
metals or precious stones, rocks or mountains are springing into
existence, that plants and animals do not increase to such an
astonishing size and strength; but the more that physical powers are
exhausted, the more have plastic, ennobling, and social powers
increased. The mind has become more susceptible and tender, the fancy
more varied and symbolical, the hand more free and artistic. Nature
approaches man; and if she were once an uncouthly teeming rock, then is
she now a quietly thriving plant, a silent human artist And of what
service would be the multiplication of these treasures, of which there
are now enough for the most distant age? How small is the space I have
surveyed; and yet what mighty stores have I at a single glance
discovered, the use of which is left for future generations! What
riches are enclosed in the northern mountains, what favorable signs I
discovered throughout my native land, in Hungary, at the foot of the
Carpathian