A range of mountains in the Alps in Europe. In the narrow valley between the mountains many people have homes.
It is very cold at the tops of high mountains, and many of them are always covered with snow.
Some mountains slope down on all sides, but generally mountains extend in long lines with slopes on but two sides. Such a line of mountains is called a range or ridge. When several ranges near each other extend in about the same direction they are called a mountain chain.
There is a wonderful kind of mountain that seems to be on fire inside. It is called a volcano. There is a great hole called the crater at the top of it, and out of the hole red-hot cinders and melted stones are sometimes thrown far upward.
The land which lies between mountains or hills is called a valley.
For Recitation.—What is a plain? A prairie? A desert? A hill? A mountain? A volcano? A valley?
LESSON IX.
THE WATER.
Preparatory Oral Work.—Boil some salt water before the class and condense the steam upon a cold plate. Have the children taste the water before boiling, and afterwards taste the drops formed by the condensed vapor. Explain how vapor rises and forms clouds; how clouds are carried over the land; how mountains condense them into rain or into snow; how the rain sinks into the ground and comes out again as springs.
Teach the wearing power of water. The schoolroom yard or a dirt road will teach this. Explain how the mud that a river washes away from the hills is deposited.
1. The Sea.—There are a great many interesting things to learn about the sea. First of all, it is never still. It is always rolling and rocking or dashing its waves into foam on the shore. In storms the waves often drive ships on rocks and wreck them. Another movement of the sea causes it to rise and fall slowly twice in a day. These two movements of the sea are known as tides.
Vesuvius, a volcano in Italy, in eruption, 1906. About 700 feet of the cone of Vesuvius was blown away during this eruption, and several villages were destroyed.
