90 Essay o?i Geology. 



and direction, wlien we reflect upon tlie inferences which naturally flow 

 from what we are tlius constrained to admit as to the origin of the fair 

 order we survey, including a physical structure of the earth's surface, so 

 admirably calculated to sui)ply all the wants, and to gratify the senses of 

 its inhabitants ; and that often, as especially in what may be called the 

 hydraulic systems of the globe, that is, in every thing connected with the 

 origin of its springs, and the distribution of its streams, by a regularly 

 adjusted series of mechanical contrivances : when we reflect, I say, that 

 all this fair and most beneficial order has originated amidst scenes of the 

 wildest wreck and violence, we may surely be led to look up with a deeper 

 conviction to the interference of a controlling and intelligent cause, 

 " riding on the ivhirlwind and directing the storm" and making the most 

 furious energies of nature work out his own purposes of benevolence. 

 Although we may, indeed, perceive equally convincing proofs of this First 

 Cause, in all the ordinary and regulated processes of nature, yet we are but 

 too apt to lose sight of it, while tracing that constant sequence of cause 

 and effect, which is in truth but the result of its own unremitting and im- 

 mutable energy. It is, therefore, more forcibly brought home to our 

 feelings and imaginations, when our attention is called to those critical 

 periods of nature, which called for its interference rather as a controlling 

 than sustaining power. 



Saussure has very forcibly expressed the impressions which the view 

 from the summit of Buet thus impressed on his mind: — "It excites," says 

 he, " the most profound emotion in the soul, and opens to the philosopher 

 the widest field of thought ; for, without arresting our thoughts, when we 

 have surveyed the glaciers and snowy summits, and contemplated the sweet 

 assurance which they afford of the perpetuity of the rivers which flow from 

 these sources, if we further reflect on the formation of these mountains, on their 

 age, on their succession, on the causes which have been able to accumulate 

 these stony elements at so great an height above the rest of the surface of 

 the globe ; if we investigate the origin of these elements, if we consider 

 the revolutions which they have already undergone, and those which may 

 still await them, what an ocean of thought ! Those only who have given 

 themselves up to such meditations on the summits of the loftiest Alps, can 

 appreciate how much more profound, more extensive, and more luminous 

 their views become, than any which they can obtain while enclosed within 

 the walls of their cabinets." We cannot, indeed, lead our home readers 

 to those peaks of the " Hautes Alpes," but it will be our object to shew 

 them, that the prospects from our humbler hills, although they cannot, 

 indeed, compete with these in picturesque sublimity, may yet fully rival 

 them in the philosophical interest of the features which they unfold to our 

 eyes. Wc shall esteem ourselves happy if we can thus open to our readers 

 novel and abundant sources of interest and instruction, in their daily walks 

 through the scenery of a neighbourhood not more distinguished by its well 



