154 



STUDIES OF NATURE. 



rogeneous and fermenting materials, more than 

 three thoufand leagues thick ? The Moon, whofe 

 diameter is much lefs confidcrable, contains, ac- 

 cording to Cajfmi, mountains three leagues high. 

 But what would be the cafe if, with the adion of 

 the heterogeneoufnefs of our terreftrial materials, 

 all in fufion, we fhould befides fuppofe that of a 

 centrifugal force, produced by the Earth's rota- 

 tory motion round it's axis ? I imagine that this 

 force muft have been neceflarily exerted in the di- 

 reftion of its Equator, and inftead of forming it 

 into a globe, muft have flattened it out in the 

 Heavens, like thofe large plates of glafs which 

 glafs-blowers expand with their breath. 



Not only the diameter of the Earth, at the 

 Equator, is no greater than under it's Meridians, 

 but the mountains there are not more elevated than 

 elfewhere. The noted Andes of Peru have not 

 their commencement at the Equator, but feveral 

 degrees beyond it, toward the South ; and coafting 

 along Peru, Chili, and Magellan's land, ftop at 

 the tifty-fifth degree of Southern Latitude, in the 

 Terra del Fuego, where they prefent to the Ocean 

 a promontory of eternal ice, of a prodigious 

 height. Through the whole extent of this im- 

 menfe track, they never open but at the Straits of 

 Magellan, forming throughout, according to the 



teftimony 



