72, STUDIES OF KATURE. 



Globe. We ought to fee the rocks detached, 

 the fruits feparated from the trees, the animals 

 which are not provided with claws turning round 

 it in the air, as we fee the particles which com- 

 pofe Saturn's ring turn round that Planet. 



It is the gravity, they repeat, which acts only 

 at the furface of the Globe, that hinders bodies 

 to detach themfelves from it. But if it there ab- 

 forbs the other powers, Wherefore, as we have al- 

 ready afked, did it permit the mountains to rife ? 

 How comes it that the centrifugal force mould 

 have been able to exalt, to a prodigious height, 

 the long ridge of the Cordeliers, while it has left 

 immoveable the volatile fcurf of fnow which co- 

 vers them ? For what reafon, if the action of gra- 

 vity is (rill univerfal, has it no influence on the 

 foft bodies of animals, when, (hut up in the womb 

 of the mother, or in the egg, they are in a flate of 

 fluidity ? All the numerous progeny of the Earth, 

 animals and vegetables, ought to be rounded into 

 balls, like their mother. The weightier!: parts of 

 their bodies, at lead, ought to be fituated under- 

 moft, efpecially in thofe which poflefs felf-mo- 

 tion ; on the contrary, they are frequently upper- 

 moft, and fupported by limbs much lighter than 

 the reft of the animal, as in the cafe of the horfe 

 and the ox. Sometimes they are between the head 

 and the feet, as in the oftrich ; or at the extre- 

 mity 



