And the tree is not an aged tree either.
CALONICO. (FROM CHAPTER V. OF ALPS AND SANCTUARIES.)
Our inventions increase in geometrical ratio. They are like living
beings, each one of which may become parent of a dozen others--some good
and some ne'er-do-weels; but they differ from animals and vegetables
inasmuch as they not only increase in a geometrical ratio, but the period
of their gestation decreases in geometrical ratio also. Take this matter
of Alpine roads for example. For how many millions of years was there no
approach to a road over the St. Gothard, save the untutored watercourses
of the Ticino and the Reuss, and the track of the bouquetin or the
chamois? For how many more ages after this was there not a mere
shepherd's or huntsman's path by the river-side--without so much as a log
thrown over so as to form a rude bridge? No one would probably have ever
thought of making a bridge out of his own unaided imagination, more than
any monkey that we know of has done so. But an avalanche or a flood once
swept a pine into position and left it there; on this a genius, who was
doubtless thought to be doing something very infamous, ventured to make
use of it. Another time a pine was found nearly across the stream, but
not quite; and not quite, again, in the place where it was wanted. A
second genius, to the horror of his fellow-tribesmen--who declared that
this time the world really would come to an end--shifted the pine a few
feet so as to bring it across the stream and into the place where it was
wanted.
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