THE EARTH. 125 



most hardy kind appear. The air is intolerably 

 cold ; either continually refrigerated with frosts, 

 or disturbed with tempests. All the ground here 

 wears an eternal covering of ice, and snows that 

 seem constantly accumulating. Upon emerging 

 from this war of the elements, he ascends into a 

 purer and serener region, where vegetation is 

 entirely ceased ; where the precipices, composed 

 entirely of rocks, rise perpendicularly above him ; 

 while he views beneath him all the combat of the 

 elements j clouds at his feet j and thunders dart- 

 ing upward from their bosoms below.* A thou- 

 sand meteors, which are never seen on the plain, 

 present themselves. Circular rainbows ;t mock 

 suns ; the shadow of the mountain projected upon 

 the body of the air;$ and the traveller's own 

 image reflected, as in a looking-glass, upon the 

 opposite cloud. 



Such are, in general, the wonders that present 

 themselves to a traveller in his journey either 

 over the Alps or the Andes. But we must not 

 suppose that this picture exhibits either a con- 

 stant or an invariable likeness of those stupendous 

 heights. Indeed, nothing can be more capricious 

 or irregular than the forms of many of them. 

 The tops of some run in ridges for a considerable 

 length, without interruption ; in others, the line 

 seems indented by great valleys to an amazing 

 depth. Sometimes a solitary and a single moun- 

 tain rises from the bosom of the plain ; and some- 



Ulloa, vol. i. f Ibid. 



Phil, Trans, vol. v. p. 152. Ulloa, vol. i. 



