THE EARTH. 119 



reach to heights that human avarice or curiosity 

 have never been able to ascend. 



We, in this part of the world, .are not, for that 

 reason, so immediately interested in the question 

 which has so long been agitated among philoso. 

 phers, concerning what gave rise to these inequa- 

 lities on the surface of the globe. In our own 

 happy region, we generally see, no inequalities 

 but such as contribute to use and beauty 5 and 

 we therefore are amazed at a question inquiring 

 how such necessary inequalities came to be form- 

 ed, and seeming to express a wonder how the 

 globe comes to be so beautiful as we find it. 

 But though with us there may be no great cause 

 for such a demand, yet in those places where 

 mountains deform the face of nature, where they 

 pour down cataracts, or give fury to tempests, 

 there seems to be good reason for inquiry either 

 into their causes or their uses. It has been 

 therefore asked by many, in what manner moun- 

 tains have come to be formed, or for what uses 

 they are designed ? 



To satisfy curiosity in these respects, much 

 reasoning has been employed, and very little 

 knowledge propagated. With regard to the first 

 part of the demand, the manner in which moun- 

 tains were formed, we have already seen the con- 

 jectures of different philosophers on that head. 

 One supposing that they were formed from the 

 earth's broken shell, at the time of the deluge : 

 another, that they existed from the creation, and 

 only acquired their deformities in process of time : 

 a third, that they owed their original to earth- 



