Still the
delicate ripple marks were preserved. Nature's vast library was being
formed, and on this scrap of a leaf not a letter was lost.
Beside this stone now lies another of the purest white. It once flowed
as water impregnated with lime, and clung to the lower side of a rock
now as high above the sea as many a famous mountain. The water
gradually evaporated, and the lime still hung like tiny drops. Between
the two stones now so near together was once a perpendicular distance
of more than a mile of impenetrable rock. How did they ever get
together? Let us see.
After the rock making, by the deposit of clay, limestone, etc., this
vast plain was lifted seven thousand feet above the sea and rimmed
round with mountains. Perhaps in being afterward volcanically tossed
in one of this old world's spasms an irregular crack ripped its way
along a few hundred miles. Into this crack rushed a great river,
perhaps also an inland ocean or vast Lake Superior, of which Salt Lake
may be a little remnant puddle. These tumultuous waters proceeded to
pulverize, dissolve, and carry away these six thousand feet of rock
deposited between the two stones. There was fall enough to make forty
Niagaras.
I was once where a deluge of rain had fallen a few days before in a
mountain valley. It tore loose some huge rocks and plunged down a
precipice of one thousand feet.
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