CHAPTER V--Calonico (continued) and Giornico



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. This man was the inventor of bridges--his family