At last we stood upon the summit of the mountains. It is so cold and barren there that nothing can grow. We were very tired, but the view which we got over many miles of country interested us for

a long time. We played that it was a great map, and we enjoyed studying it much more than those in the geography.

The mountain slopes down like the roof of a house. We stood as it were on the ridge of the roof.

On the side of the mountain up which we

had climbed, the water from the melting snow and the springs, after a long journey, goes down past our valley home. Upon the other side of the ridge, or summit of the mountain, the water flows down through another valley far away from ours.

We stood with one foot upon one slope, and one upon the other. The raindrops falling there start away in different directions.

How different their stories will be when they once more reach the ocean. They may never be near each other again.

The ridge on which we stand is called a divide, because it makes the water flow in opposite directions.

QUESTIONS.

How are mountains different from hills?

What occupations do people follow in the valley?

What kinds of work are carried on in the mountains?
What is a waterfall?

Of what use are waterfalls?

Tell some of the ways in which pine trees differ from other trees

Of what use to us is the sap of the pine?

Where does snow stay the longest?

Where is it cooler on a summer day, in a valley or on a hill?

Find a divide near your home and describe it.

How is the divide like the roof of a house?

How is going up a mountain like going toward the north?

Why do different plants grow at different heights on the mountain? What climate do you like best?

Would you rather live in the valley or on the mountain? Why?

I found a shell,

And to my curious ear this lonely thing

Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing

Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell.

How came this shell upon the mountain height?
Ah, who can say

Whether there dropped by some too careless hand —
Whether there cast when oceans swept the land
Ere the Eternal had ordained the day?

Strange, was it not? Far from its native sea,
One song it sang-

Sang of the mighty mysteries of the tide -
Sang of the awful vast, profound and wide-
Softly with echoes of the ocean rang.

And as the shell upon the mountain's height
Sings of the sea,

So do I ever, leagues and leagues away -
So do I ever, wandering where I may,

Sing, O my home-sing, O my home, of thee.

MT. WILBUR FROM THE SHORE OF LAKE MCDERMOTT, GLACIER
NATIONAL PARK, MONTANA.

STORY OF A MOUNTAIN.

Before us rises a high mountain. Its top is white with snow. Its sides are steep and rocky and very hard to climb. What made the mountain? Has it always been there, or is it a little hill large and high?

grown

Mountains really do grow. Is that not strange? They were once lower than they are now. They began as little hills long ago and slowly kept getting larger. When mountains stop growing they do not remain always. They are wearing away, and after a long time may change to little hills again. Let us see if we can understand how this is done. A mountain will interest us more when we know its story.

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Some mountains are formed by the rising of the solid land on which we live. The land wrinkles in furrows and ridges. You can see how this is done by taking a piece of paper in your hands: when the paper is stretched out it is even like a plain; shove the opposite edges of the paper toward each other and it will wrinkle. There will be a ridge, and then a hollow, and then a ridge again.

At first the ridges upon the earth where mountains are forming are not higher than hills, but they keep rising and rising until they reach, it may be, two or three miles into the sky.

You can not see mountains grow, because they do so very slowly. You would have to watch many thousands of years to see one change a great deal.

You have all heard of earthquakes, I am sure. At such a time the land trembles under our feet. The strongest buildings are sometimes thrown down. In places where mountains are growing we often have earthquakes. In the western part of our country we can see places where the land has changed its level fifty feet at the time of an earthquake.

The mountain which rises so white in our picture is a volcano. It is one of the highest mountains in the United States and is called Mount Shasta. Volcanoes are formed in a different manner from other mountains.