.

a

man begin where his father left off, or | sphere, and has his own duty to render; profit by his experience. But I have and who could tell that with man's will learned one great thing by coming here, we might not have failed as he does. and it has been a consolation to me There was but One bound by no law; unspeakable, almost making up for and he, you know, has done it. He everything. It is that he very rarely took your nature and your will, and means any harm when he begins. exposed himself to all your accidents, What he intends is to do well. Take and chose the perfect life, and fulfilled this to your heart, you that are truly it. You all know. And in the face of troubled. Very, very rarely do they the Son the Father sees you all. Nay, mean any harm. There is one here a greater wonder still than that, if who meant to be a noble man like those greater wonder can be. When I look he belonged to but one heedless step at you," the prince said, touching lightly after another has brought him face to his bosom, bowing slightly his head, face with despair. Ah! 22 sait the "it goes to my heart. You are a little prince, with a little start of pleasure, like him a little- a little for he is a looking round him, "this law works man in the fulness of your manhood. also in things which are not evil but You remind us all, like little brothers, good. I see another who went forth like far-off relations, always of him. one day like a child to her play, and Think whether those, whose image our met another who is to be her com- Lord wears, are dear to us or not! panion through earth and heaven. There is something in all of you They did not plot it nor plan. An hour look, a movement. You wear his feabefore they had never heard each tures, and flout him as if he had never other's names. An hour after and the been. The wonder of it! But you are link that is never to be broken was a little like him all the same all of welded between them. They met. - by you, even in what you call the slums. accident. Can I tell you how this was I, who have been there, have been done ? Not I; nor can they. Love caught by a glance—just a movement is; it is not known how it comes; it of the eyes perhaps, a lifting of a hand, is an accident like all the rest." Here something, I can't tell what, that rehe turned towards his host and called minded me of my Lord! him by that name which no one understood, or could ever catch distinctly. 66 Brother," he said, with a tone of mild authority, "you will look to these two, for they are yours. See to it:" He paused again, then turned to the little anxious crowd which was full of eager curiosity. "The strange thing is," he said, "that this free soul, this being all will and independence, has never yet, amid all his vagaries, chosen fully and always to be good. This was what we looked for, hoped for, fully ex-brothers, as that they should help you; pected that out of so many there and good will come accidentally, as would be one here and there who in all your actions are swayed. But you the fulness of his will would choose. will make no fundamental change. If There was one as you all know; but he by giving bread and coals, and educawas the only one in heaven or the uni- tion and comfort, you could make them verse who could do whatever he would, good! whose existence was his own to use as he pleased. There might have been some among us who would gladly have tried, but each of us belongs to his own

ณ

He paused with a long breath of emotion, and there came from the bosom of that little crowd, all gathered round him, a sigh, which was unspeakable, which meant they knew not what, strange thrill, an indescribable feeling. The stranger made a slight movement, as if shaking off an impression too deep for the moment. And then he resumed,

"In the mean time, it is very good, very good that you should help your

but that is the only thing; and as for these thousands of years they have not chosen it, it is not likely they will to-day. And no one can force them to be good.. God may not. His pledge

One

pression of tenderness and trouble in his face. Whoever was surprised it was very evident he was not surprised, which to some seemed the most curious of all.

is against it. They are to be free; it | women fell a-crying; the man who had is the law of their being, as it is ours to been speaking stood with his lips apart, obey. The consolation is that though as if still in his consciousness giving all do evil, scarcely one I have never forth that strange muffled cry. seen one - meant to do it from the be- man cried in mockery, "I told you he ginning; perhaps not one! - they are was a Mahatma from Thibet !" But swept along by accident after accident. perhaps the strangest thing of all was And thus your earth sways undestroyed the aspect of old Lord Hillesborough, in the great space and breath of God, who was perceived to be standing quite which is common to us all. And the outside the group, with his hands years go on towards their accomplish-clasped, and the most wonderful exment. And your countenance, the face of man, shines over us in heaven." "What is all this talk," said one of the spectators, impatient, who had long been trying to get utterance," of us and you ? as if you had some superiority Arthur, the young heir of the house, over our race, or were not subject to all rushed out of the room as if with our penalties. You speak well, prince, the intention of following and finding and your traditions may be so different the visitor who had disappeared. He from ours as to give you this feeling. returned in a few minutes with JerningStill I suppose you are a man like the ham in a state of great excitement, sobrest of us. I like that you said about bing, with gasps of utterance, and no one meaning harm, and about each holding an open paper in his hand, starting afresh I have myself felt "Which I don't deserve it, my lord, I that. But don't deserve it!" he cried. "I've done perhaps no worse than others would have done in my place, and I didn't mean no harm; if he didn't use 'em himself it seemed-it seemed a kind of a pity not to use 'em; and here lie says I'm to have all-but I don't deserve it, my lord."

Half-a-dozen people precipitated themselves upon the paper in Jerningham's hand, hoping to discover some mystery; but it was no more than a few simple words, requesting that Jerningham should have all that was in his hands.

The speaker paused confused. He uttered a strange sound as of wonder, remoustrance, bewilderment. Some one said after that there had been a noise in the other part of the room, and that everybody had looked around. I don't know what explanation of the incident there might be in that, or indeed if it really was so at all. But this is certain, that the gentleman who had begun to reply to the stranger suddenly paused, making that wonderful sound in his throat. And it immediately became apparent to everybody around that "He will do better another the foreign prince, Lord Hillesborough's time," the paper bore, and it was guest and friend, was no longer there. signed by a curious cipher in a language It happened in a moment, in the twin- to which no one there had any clue. kling of an eye. Even had the atten- Jerningham interposed, with convulsive tion of the other guests been called exclamations. "He have put the big momentarily away, there was no second diamond into his 'at again," he said; door by which he could have left the "I thought as something must be up. room, and nobody saw him leave the He didn't leave that—no, my lord, oh But he was not there. He had no! nor I wouldn't have touched it if been the centre of the group, closely he had, seeing how once it took and surrounded, and that living circle had grabbed me me that was doing no not opened that anybody was aware of harm; oh Lord! no, that's not true. to let him go forth. But he was not But oh, gentlemen, he's took it, and there. There was, as was natural, a he's gone and the best of masters, great outcry and hubbub. Some of the and I'll never see his like again—

room.

4240

66

f

The commotion that ensued in the | before him a word in the same cipher house, and the way in which many of as the above, which no doubt was also

the gentlemen present endeavored to trace the mysterious visitor, walking all over the park, going to all the railway stations, and making a hundred inquiries, need scarcely be told. Some of them thought they had accounted for his disappearance more or less satisfactorily. As for Lord Hillesborough, who made no inquiries, he was fully satisfied a few days after by the arrival of a letter from the north of Scotland, written in the scratchy and tremulous handwriting of a woman, and one that did not appear to be an educated woman or belonging to his own class. It ran as follows:

his name there whither he had gone. And the prince, so far as I am aware, has not been seen or heard of more.

From The Nineteenth Century.
INACCESSIBLE VALLEYS.

A STUDY IN PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
BY ALFRED R. WALLACE.

MOST readers of that delightful story "Lorna Doone" must have been interested in the curious valley occupied by the Doone outlaws as an almost impregnable stronghold. It is described as being about a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, the nearly level bottom, through which ran a mountain stream, being bounded on each side by a wall of rock, eighty or a hundred feet high. At proached each other, forming narrow the two extremities, these walls apravines, through which the little river At the lower end there was a considerentered and escaped from the valley.

"DEAR SIR AND BROTHER, — One that you will know of has just come in bye to me, and bid me to write and tell you his visit was over, but stepped out of his road to give me a word, as a poor person that has had great privileges and been admitted to things she does not attempt to understand. Dear sir, he bids you to know that he is well sat-able fall or cataract, over a long, steep isfied, and glad that he was permitted to come, and has now gone to his own place, the which you will understand better than me; and that if you will take his advice about things you are acquainted with, he is free to say it will be well. He sends you his greetings but no farewell, seeing that he awaits your arrival soon, and also that of me, an unworthy sister, scarce daring to put down, though he gives me the permission, dear sir and brother, my new

name,

What followed was in the same cipher as that of the prince. The old earl had seen it before, but did not know who was the bearer on earth of that

name.

vertical cliffs, so that the only entrance slope of rock bounded on each side by was up the steep and slippery rocks forming the bed of the torrent, quite footed climber. At the upper end there impracticable except to a good bareappears to have been also some natural barrier, the stream being described as running for a short distance underground; but rude rock-arches had been built over it, forming a kind of tunnel entrance to the valley, which could be easily guarded or blocked up altogether.

If this description applied to any real locality we should have, on a small scale, all the features which characterize an "inaccessible valley," the sides He took the advice of his mysterious formed by rocky precipices, while at counsellor, and abounded more than the upper and lower ends are narrow ever, if that were possible, in good gorges rendered impracticable, either deeds and kindness to all. And one by waterfalls, or by the stream filling day he was found smiling in his chair, up the channel at its narrowest portion where he had sat in a great peace all where the vertical side walls leave no the night, having departed many hours foothold. Persons who know Exmoor before any one knew. The last thing thoroughly say, however, that there is he had done was to trace on the paper no such valley in any part of the dis

trict, and that the talented author has, | from sixty to eighty miles, while the in this portion of his work, drawn on his height is from eight thousand to nearly imagination for his facts. Nor, so far fifteen thousand feet. This average

The Yosemite valley is a portion of This remarkable valley may be said the upper course of the Merced River, to average about half a mile in vertical which rises near the summit of the depth, but some of the precipices that Sierra Nevada about one hundred and give it so impressive a character are seventy miles almost due east of San considerably more than this height, El Francisco. This great mountain range, Capitan at the lower end of the valley forming the western edge of the lofty being a smooth vertical wall of granite table-land of which the Rocky Moun- thirty-three hundred feet high with no tains form the eastern border, has a visible crack or ledge upon it from top very gradual slope from the central to bottom. Cathedral Rock, nearly opvalley of California, the distance from posite, is twenty-six hundred feet; the the foothills to the summit varying Sentinel Rock, nearly the middle of the

south side of the valley, is over three forms which are seen in the Yosemite, as, thousand feet; while the Half Dome at for instance, in El Capitan, where two perthe upper end of the valley is no less pendicular surfaces of smooth granite, more than 4,737 feet high, the upper fifteen than three thousand feet high, meet each hundred feet of which is quite vertical, other at a right angle. These squarely cut, re-entering angles, like those below El while the lower part slopes at an angle Capitan, and between Cathedral Rock and of 60° or 70°, and is partly concealed the Sentinel, or in the Illilouette cañon, by fallen fragments. The great dome- were never produced by ordinary erosion. shaped masses of granite are a charac- Much less could any such cause be called in teristic feature of the Sierra Nevada, to account for the peculiar formation of the as they are of some other granitic re- Half Dome, the vertical portion of which is gions. Nearly opposite the Half Dome all above the ordinary level of the walls of is the North Dome, 3,568 feet high, its the valley, rising two thousand feet, in summit beautifully rounded, but broken subline isolation, above any point which lower down so as to show the concentric could have been reached by denuding agenlayers of which it is formed. The Sen-cies, even supposing the current of water to have filled the whole valley. tinel Dome on the south side is of similar character. The Half Dome is exactly like the other domes in charac-sible agency of ice, which he dismisses as quite inadequate. Valleys formed ter, but appears as if cut off vertically,, leaving the southern half quite perfect by fissures of the earth's crust are then discussed, and it is shown that the and of a fine spherical contour. Professor J. D. Whitney, formerly Yosemite cannot have been formed in state geologist of California, thus char- this way, partly because it is too wide, acterizes the valley in his "Yosemite and also because there is no correspondence between the opposite sides.

Guide Book :"

The principal features of the Yosemite, and those by which it is distinguished from all other known valleys, are: first, the near approach to verticality of its walls; second, their great height, not only absolutely, but as compared with the width of the valley itself; and, finally, the very small amount of talus or débris at the base of these gigantic cliffs. These are the great characteristic features of the Yosemite throughout its whole length; but, besides these, there are many other striking peculiarities and features, both of sublimity and beauty, which can hardly be surpassed, if equalled, by those of any mountain valleys in the world. Either the domes, or the waterfalls of the Yosemite, or any single one of them even, would be sufficient in any European country to attract travellers from far and

wide.

The origin of this wonderful valley has been a puzzle even to geologists. After describing the formation of most of the valleys of the Sierra Nevada as being due to denudation, Professor Whitney says:

The eroded cañons of the Sierra, however, whose formation is due to the action of water, never have vertical walls, nor do their sides present the peculiar angular

He then goes on to discuss the pos

In default of any of the usually accepted theories of valley formation, Professor Whitney has been led to adopt one which has hardly yet been recognized by geologists, as probable or even possible, and which he describes as follows:

We conceive that, during the process of upheaval of the Sierra, or, possibly, at some time, after that had taken place, there was at the Yosemite a subsidence of a limited area, marked by lines of fault or fissures crossing each other nearly at right angles. In other and more simple words, the bottom of the valley sank down to an unknown depth, owing to its support being withdrawn from underneath during some of those convulsive movements which must have attended the upheaval of so extensive and elevated a chain, no matter how slow we imagine the process to have been.

After showing that subsidence is a well-ascertained fact, the only difficulty in this place being the great vertical displacement of such a small area, he adds:

By the adoption of the subsidence theory for the formation of the Yosemite we are able to get over one difficulty which appears insurmountable with any other. This is,