"What a grand salmon-river this would be, Major!" said I; "what pools and stickles are here! Ah! if we only could get the salmon-spawn through the tropics without its germinating .-- Can you tell me, Doctor, why these rocks should take the form of columns?
Is there any particular reason for it that you know ?" "You have asked a very puzzling question," he replied, "and I hardly know how to answer it.

Nine geologists out of ten will tell you that basalt is lava cooled under pressure.

But I have seen it in places where that solution was quite inapplicable.

However, I can tell you that the same cause which set these pillars here, to wall the river, piled up yon Organ-hill, produced the caves of Widderin, the great crater-hollow of Mirngish, and accommodated us with that brisk little earthquake which we felt just now.

For you know that we mortals stand only on a thin crust of cooled matter, but beneath our feet is all molten metal." "I wish you could give us a lecture on these things, Doctor," I said.
"To-morrow," said he, "let us ride forth to Mirngish and have a picnic.
There I will give you a little sketch of the origin of that hill." In front of the Brentwoods' house the plains stretched away for a dozen miles or so, a bare sheet of grass with no timber, grey in summer, green in winter.