PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3713, 12 May 1925, Page 66

PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

VALUE OF MOUNTAINS.—II. In last issue of this good paper, tine Otago Witness, in speaking of mountains and their value to a country I dealt wicli the subject more as an essay or composition to show boys of a thinking and observant nature how wondrous and full of purpose are the works of the Creator. If we look into things properly or thoughtfully we can see, or come to the conclusion of the poet Southey, I think, that “ There lives and works a soul in all things: that soul is Gcd.” That means that there is nothing which has occurred or exists to-day on the surface of this planet that has not a purpose and leads to some great end, though the purpose or the end may net be clear to the confused minds of us puny mortals. Still, little by little, mortal man, with his little brain box at the apex of his two-legged erect body, is wTesting from Nature the works of God, her great secrets. Such a state of affairs is as it should be. A great German philosopher has said—and he probably got the idea from the ancient Greek philosophers: “On oarth there is nothing great but man, and in man there is nothing great but mind.” Man has been given a brain, the mortal machine, so to speak, which the spirit and mind use to reason out things, and to express the ideas of man in words. It is the expression of the ideas of great minds that has produced what we call civilisation, and enabled man to live in comfort if he has the wise will to do so. Great discoveries in Nature, in science, and in manufacturing are only the efforts of poor little man to reap the rewards of his struggle upwards towards the intelligence or knowledge of his Creator, Who knows all things.

As a man struggles onward and upward along the right path, so will the knowledge and secrets of the works of Nature —that is, of all things —be given him. The great works on religion and the discoveries of science have made that plain to all who read and think carefully. In his boyhood’s days “ Pater ” knew a boy, a very kind or soft-hearted boy, who used to feel very miserable whenever the weather was cold, wet, or stormy. What used to trouble his young mind wrs that amongst the poor people of the world there would be many who had no shelter from the rainj the cold, and the blighting blasts of winter. In his school books and at Sunday school he was taught that God is good; but he wondered sadly and often how a good and great God could allow His rain, His storms, His cold of winter and His heat of summer t-o inflict sufferings and death upon so many of His creatures. He questioned his teachers and many men, but got very little satisfaction from any of their explanations. When he became a youth he visited in the country a farmer friend, and during a spell of wet weather he told his worrying thoughts to the farmer, who said to him: “What are. you worrying about, boy? More rain—more grass, more food for the cattle and sheep, more food for men, and more money for me.” That set the boy thinking, and opened his mind ; and ever afterwards when storms and rain fell upon the land he thought of the farmer’s words, and was comforted in mind. That was a great lesson to the youth, and revealed to his mind many things that before he could not understand ; and the falling rain and otheT peculiarities of climate gave him comfort instead of worry or misery. Afterwards he learned these words of wisdom from the words of some great philosopher: “ That there’s nothing good or bad in this world but thinking makes, it so,” and that all a man needs to make him happy is but a good will—that ia, the will to work and the will to be happy. Without such a will or determination a man is, as the great William Shakespeare says of a man who has no musio in his soul, “ only fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils.” Such men become the discontented, the troublers, the criminals, and the blood-shedders of society and nations.

On reading these words some will he beginning to think, “But what has all this got to do with mountains? ” Well, are not mountains the works of Nature, and are not the works of Nature the works of God? If so, are there not a purpose and reasons for their existence on the earth’s surface?

In school and in books it is possible to make these things plain to roung minds. Although our public schools are called secular schools because religion as taught in Sunday schools is not taught to the children of the State, there is much true religion taught bv our teachers themselves. and from the lessons given in all the kinds of the school books used. I wonder how many boys have read William Tell’s “ Address to His Native Mountains,” or Coleridge’s beatftiful “ Hymn Before Sunrise in the Valley of Chamouni ” ? Both are beautiful lines addressed to the mountains of Switzerland, and they show how the great and stupendous works l of Nature in the form of the huge and grand mountain masses awaken all that is best in the soul of man.

The thoughts awakened in the minds of these two great men mav be a little beyond the minds of boys in the manner in which they are expressed ; but on reading the words of the poems, although all the words and expressions of ideas, mav not he understood, still the beauty of the rhyme and rhythm of the words may appeal to the mind, and leave a life-long impression behind. Eloquence of language appeals only to some bovs; and those boys are fortunate if they have the brains or minds to feel the beauty of the words of such poems. All minds, however, are not built alike, and it is a good thing that they are not. There would be too much sameness or monotony in the worTd if there were not such differences in form and colour in Nature, and such diversity

of form and mind amongst men. Some bovs in school—a few —are poetically and musically endowed, while others—the great majority—are those who want to know why things are, where they ate, and what use they are to men. To mako money and to be of immediate benefit to the material progress of a country l*oys endowed with practical minds are very valuable young citizens. They usually have the intelligence, will, and energy which send a country forward, and make the citizens prosperous. Df course geography is only one of the subjects learned in schools, and the nature and value of mountains is only a small part of the subject. It is one of the subjects that appeals to the practicalminded, or those who value things for their use, or what benefits they may bring them.

Before concluding this article on this section of geography, it will be as well to mention some other uses of mountains. It lias been told how thev act as condensers of the vapour in the atmosphere. The sun as we all know makes the winds, and the dry winds and the heat of the air draw's vapour from the oceans, lakes, streams, and plants. That vapour is borne by the winds to the mountains and condensed into moisture and snow. The condensation gives us snowfields, glaciers, and moujitain springs. These again give us mountain torrents or the sources of rivers. Streams or rivers have more than one use, hut one of their greatest uses is to carry materials from high levels to lower levels. It is that work or action of rivers that has given man the fertile and food-giving plains of the world. There is not a great fertile tract in the world that has ict been made by the action of water and mostly by rivers. The great plains of New Zealand, the Canterbury Plains, the Southland Plain, Nelson Valley Wanganui Plain the Hawke’s Bav Plain, and the Bay of Plenty Plain ail owe their existence to mountains furnishing rivers -ith the materials to build them up, and Hie water to carry those materials. The laieri Plain, upper and lower, the Maniototo and Alexandra Plains in Otago, all supporting a large and increasing population as things go in New Zealand, are old lake beds that have been filled lip by materials furnished by mountains. Deltas, estuary flats, lake beds, and wide valleys, all built up from materials from mountains, are the most fertile tracts to be found in anv oountrv.

High and mountain ranges alter the direction and. nature of winds, and so effect climates in regard both to wind, rain, and temperature. Moreover, as the mountains give up the lighter earthy matter to form. plains, the heavier minerals are left behind. Through the countless ages of the wearing down process, the minerals accumulate, and worn-down mountain ranges thus become the world’s great storehouses of valuable minerals, such as platinum, gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, zinc, and nickel, etc.