l66 STUDIES OP NATURE. 



that all the parts of our habitation may be com- 

 prehended in a fingle view, while we occupy the 

 centre ; and which levels, fits to the plummet, 

 fmooihs, and poliQies the ftones employed in 

 building, that the monuments we raife may be foft 

 to the eye and to the touch. The harmonies of 

 Nature are not thofe of a Sybarite ; but they are 

 thofe of Mankind, and of all beings. When Na- 

 ture raifes a rock, fhe introduces clefts, inequali- 

 ties, points, perforations. She hollows and roughens 

 it wiih the chifel of Time, and of the Elements ; 

 fhe plants herbs and trees upon it ; fhe flores it 

 with animals, and places it in the bofom of the Sea, 

 in tne very focus of florms and tempefts, that it 

 may there afford an afylum to the inhabitants oi 

 the Air and of the Waters. 



When Nature, in like manner intended to fcoop 

 out bafons to receive the Seas, (lie neither rounded 

 the borders, nor applied the line to them ; but 

 contrived and produced deep baj'-s, flieltered from 

 the general currents of the Ocean, that, during 

 ftormy weaiher, the rivers might difcharge them- 

 felves into it in fecurity ; that the finny legions 

 might refort thither, for refuge, at all feafon?, 

 there lick up the alluvion of the earth, carried 

 down by the frefh water; come thither to fpawn, 

 mounting upward and upward, many of them, 

 toward the very fource, where they can find botli, 



food 



