Across the Great Saint Bernard; The modes of nature and the manners of man

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 Excerpt: ...by its arrival amid the snowfields. Arrived at a level with the summit of the snow-capped mountain, it encounters the icy blast sweeping over and around it, whereupon the invisibly suspended aqueous vapour of these uprising currents is instantaneously condensed into dense steam, and rolled away from the summit by that same cold breeze so importantly involved in the formation of the exquisitely dense and brightly illumined cloud we see heaving its vast billowy form aloft, as it were, from a boiling lake or ebulliating cauldron high up amid the mountain snows. The explorer in unknown seas shouts with joy when he sees looming above the horizon--what? A cloud no bigger than a man's hand. And why? Because he knows that there is an island there. He knows more: he knows that on that island, which he has never seen, there is a forest. Now, physically a forest is nothing more nor less than a gigantic pump, and old Sol is always at work upon its leaves as soon as his rays reach them. He pulls at those leaves just as we do at our cigars. By them he pulls the water out of the earth, and gives it--nay, lends it only--to his beauteous clouds. There are, however, forests of leafless trees in some parts of Australia. They respire, so to speak, through a little stem, apparently answering the purpose of a leaf. The tree is known as "the leafless acacia." WHO DRIVES THE TIC-TAC MILL? We continue our stroll along the valley, and hear a drowsy "tic-tac." It is the primitive water-mill of the mountain woodman. There it trundles, obedient to his wish. But who brought him this well-disposed power? The clouds--the angels of the ocean, the Dryads of the woods. These were the messengers; these were the willing workers. The great angel of lake and sea, rain; the so...