Personification is a literary device that consists of associating human attributes to an object, animal or idea. The lines of the excerpt that contain personification are the following:
<em>"The farm buildings huddled like the clinging aphids on the mountain skirts, crouched low to the ground as though the wind might blow them into the sea".</em> In this line, the farm buildings are developing human actions such as <em>"huddling"</em> and <em>"crouching".</em>
<em>"Five-fingered ferns hung over the water and dropped spray from their fingertips"</em>. Personification is used in this line because the ferns are mentioned as having fingers.
<em>"The high mountain wind coasted sighing through the pass and whistled on the edges of the big blocks of broken granite".</em> The wind is carrying out the human actions of <em>"sighing and whistling".</em>
<em>"Gradually the sharp snaggled edge of the ridge stood out above them, rotten granite tortured and eaten by the winds of time"</em>. The human characteristics of <em>"rotten"</em> and <em>"tortured"</em> are attributed to the granite and the winds developed the human action of <em>"eating"</em> the granite.