Now, just in the same way as the wrinkles and curves of a statue
are cut by the sculptor's chisel, so the hills and valleys, the
steep slopes and gentle curves on the face of our earth, giving
it all its beauty, and the varied landscapes we love so well,
have been cut out by water and ice passing over them. It is true
that some of the greater wrinkles of the earth, the lofty
mountains, and the high masses of land which rise above the sea ,
have been caused by earthquakes and shrinking of the
earth. We shall not speak of these to-day, but put them aside as
belonging to the rough work of the statuary yard. But when once
these large masses are put ready for water to work upon, then
all the rest of the rugged wrinkles and gentle slopes which make
the country so beautiful are due to water and ice, and for this
reason I have called them "sculptors."

Go for a walk in the country, or notice the landscape as you
travel on a railway journey. You pass by hills and through
valleys, through narrow steep gorges cut in hard rock, or
through wild ravines up the sides of which you can hardly
scramble. Then you come to grassy slopes and to smooth plains
across which you can look for miles without seeing a hill; or,
when you arrive at the seashore, you clamber into caves and
grottos, and along dark narrow passages leading from one bay to
another. All these - hills, valleys, gorges, ravines, slopes,
plains, caves, grottos, and rocky shores - have been cut out by
the water. Day by day and year by year, while everything seems
to us to remain the same, this industrious sculptor is chipping
away, a few grains here, a corner there, a large mass in another
place, till he gives to the country its own peculiar scenery,