Madam How and Lady Why, or, First lessons in earth lore for children . eet, and looked too at the greatmountains to the westward, and Benaun, and Benna-buird and Benna-muicdhui, with their bright patchesof jternal snow, I should advise you to look at therock on which you stand, and see what you seethere. And you will see that on the side of the Coilestowards Lochnagar, and between the knolls of them,are scattered streams., as it were, of great roundboulder stones—which are not serpentine, but granitefrom the top of Lochnagar, five miles away. Andyou will see that the knolls of serpentine rock,
Madam How and Lady Why, or, First lessons in earth lore for children . eet, and looked too at the greatmountains to the westward, and Benaun, and Benna-buird and Benna-muicdhui, with their bright patchesof jternal snow, I should advise you to look at therock on which you stand, and see what you seethere. And you will see that on the side of the Coilestowards Lochnagar, and between the knolls of them,are scattered streams., as it were, of great roundboulder stones—which are not serpentine, but granitefrom the top of Lochnagar, five miles away. Andyou will see that the knolls of serpentine rock, or atleast their backs and shoulders towards Lochnagar,are all smoothed and polished till they are as roundas the backs of sheep, rochers moutonnds, as theFrench call ice-polished rocks; and then, if you THE ICE-PLOUGH. in understand what that means, you will say, as Igaid, * I am perfectly certain that this great basinbetween me and Lochnagar, which is now 3,000feet deep of empty air, was once filled up with iceto the height of the hills on which I stand—aboui. 1 ^^^-^^s^A^ri^ 1700 feet high—and that that ice ran ovei Into GlenMiiici^, between these pretty knolls, and coveredthe ground where Birk Hall now stands. And more:—When you see growing on thoseknolls of serpentine a few pretty little Alpine plants, 114 MADAM HOW AND LADY WHY. which have no business down there so low, you willhave a fair right to say, as I said, * The seeds ofthese plants were brought by the ice ages and agessince from off the mountain range of Lochnagar,and left here, nestling among the rocks, to found afresh colony, far from their old mountain home. If I could take you with me up to Scotland,—take you, for instance, along the Tay, up the Passof Dunkeld, or up Strathmore towards Aberdeen,or up the Dee towards Braemar,—I could show yousigns, which cannot be mistaken, of the time whenScotland was, just like Spitzbergen or like Greenlandnow, covered in one vast sheet of snow and ice fromyears
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