264 0N THE DECLIVITIES Or MOUNTAINS. 



well be diftinguifhed by the remains of land animals, or of 

 vegetables, or of both, which they prefent in their ftrata (or 

 at lead by the impreffions of vegetables which they bear) as 

 thefe muft have been conveyed after the earth had been in- 

 habited. But mountains regularly unratified bearing fuch re- 

 mains, for inftance the carboniferous, cannot be deemed to 

 have been formed in a period fo tumultuous. During this 

 deluge the waters alfo held a different courfe, proceeding at 

 firfr. from fouth to north, and afterwards in both oppofite di- 

 rections, as (hewn in treating of that cataftrophe in my fecond 

 effay. 



Exceptions from Hence, and from various contingent local caufes, as partial 



local caufes. inundations, earthquakes, volcanos, the erofi on of rivers, the 

 elapfion of ftrata, difintigration, the difruption of the lofty 

 mounds by which many lakes were anciently hemmed in, fe- 

 veral changes were produced in particular countries that may at 

 firft light appear, though in reality they are not, exceptions 

 to the operations of the general caufes already ftated. 



Inflances* Thus the mountains of Kamfkatfka had their eaftern flanks 



torn and rendered abrupt by the irruption of the general de- 

 luge, probably accompanied by earthquakes. And thus the 

 Meiflener had its E. and N. flanks undermined by the river 

 Warra, as Werner has (hewn ; thus the eighth and fixteenth 

 obfervations are accounted for, as is the thirteenth, by the vaft 

 inundations fo frequent in this country, 1 Pallas, p. 172, which 

 undermined or corroded its E. fide, while the weftern were 

 fmoothed by the calcareous depofitions from the numerous 

 » rivers in its vicinity. 



Different fpecies Hence, 4. we fee why on different fides of lofty mountains 



offtonemuftbe different fpecies of ffones are found, as Pallas and Sauffure 



found on differ- * ■ 



ent fides of have obferved, 2 Sauff. § 981, a circumftance which Sauffure 



mountains. imagined almoft inexplicable, but which Dolomieu has fince 

 happily explained, by (hewing that the current which conveyed 

 the calcareous fubftances to the northern, eaftern, and north- 

 eaftern fides of the Alps, for inftance, was flopped by the 

 height of thefe mountains, and thus prevented from conveying 

 them to the fouthern fides, and thus the north-eaftern fides 

 were rendered more gentle than the oppofite, 3. New Rotz. 

 p. 425. conformably to the theory here given. 



Interceptions. Hence, 5. where feveral lofty ridges run parallel to each 



other, it muft frequently happen that the external fhould in- 

 tercept 



