THE EARTH. 



41 



deformities in process of time ; a third, that 

 they owed their original to earthquakes ; and 

 still a fourth, with much more plausibility than 

 the rest, ascribing them entirely to the fluc- 

 tuations of the deep, which he supposes in 

 the beginning to have covered the whole 

 earth. Such as are pleased with disquisitions 

 of this kind, may consult Burnet, Winston, 

 Woodward, or Buffon. Nor would I be 

 thought to decry any mental amusements, that 

 at worst keep us innocently employed ; but, 

 for my own part, I cannot help wondering 

 how the opposite demand has never come to 

 be made ; and why philosophers have never 

 asked how we come to have plains? Plains 

 are sometimes more prejudicial to man than 

 mountains. Upon plains, an inundation has 

 greater power; the beams of the sun are often 

 collected there with suffocating fierceness; 

 they are sometimes found desert for several 

 hundred miles together, as in the country east 

 of the Caspian sea, although otherwise fruit- 

 ful, merely because there are no risings or 

 depressions to form reservoirs, or collect the 

 smallest rivulet of water. The most rational 

 answer, therefore, why either mountains or 

 plains were formed, seems to be that they 

 were thus fashioned by the hand of Wisdom, 

 in order that pain and pleasure should be so 

 contiguous, as that morality might be exer- 

 cised either in bearing the one, or communi- 

 cating the other. 



Indeed, the more I consider this dispute 

 respecting the formation of mountains, the 

 more I am struck with the futility of the ques- 

 tion. There is neither a straight line, nor an 

 exact superficies, in all nature. If we con- 

 sider a circle, even with mathematical pre- 

 cision, we shall find it formed of a number of 

 small right lines, joining at angles together. 

 These angles, therefore, may be considered 

 in a circle as mountains are upon our globe ; 

 and to demand the reason for the one being 

 mountainous, or the other angular, is only to 

 ask, why a circle is a circle, or a globe is a 

 globe. In short, if there be no surface with- 

 out inequality in nature, why should we be 

 surprised that the earth has such ? It has often 

 been said, that the inequalities of its surface 

 are scarce distinguishable, if compared to its 

 magnitude; and ! think we have every reason 

 to be content with the answer. 



Some, however, have avoided the difficulty 

 by urging the final cause. They allege, that 

 mountains have been formed merely because 

 they are useful to man. This carries the in- 

 quirer but a part of the way ; for no one 

 can affirm, that in all places they are useful. 

 The contrary is known, by horrid experience, 

 in those valleys that are subject to their in- 

 fluence. However, as the utility of any part 

 of our earthly habitation is a very pleasing 

 and flattering speculation to every philoso- 

 pher, it is not to be wondered that much has 

 been said to prove the usefulness of these. 

 For this purpose many conjectures have been 

 made, that have received a degree of assent 

 even beyond their evidence; for men were 

 unwilling to become more miserably wise. 



It has been alleged, as one principal ad- 

 vantage that we derive from them, that they 

 serve, like hoops or ribs, to strengthen our 

 earth, and to bind it together. In conse- 

 quence of this theory, Kircher has given us a 

 map of the earth, in this manner hooped with 

 its mountains ; which might have a much 

 more solid foundation, did it entirely corres- 

 pond with truth. 



Others haVe found a different use for them. 

 ! especially when they run surrounding our 

 globe ; which is, that they stop the vapours 

 which are continually travelling from the 

 equator to the poles ; for these being urged 

 by the heat of the sun, from the warm regions 

 of the line, must all be accumulated at the 

 poles, if they were not stopped in their way 

 by those high ridges of mountains which cross 

 their direction. But an answer to this may 

 be, that all the great mountains in America 

 lie lengthwise, and therefore do not cross 

 their direction. 



But to leave these remote advantages, 

 others assert, that not only the animal but 

 vegetable part of the creation would perish 

 for want of convenient humidity, were it not 

 for their friendly assistance. Their summits 

 are, by these, supposed to arrest, as it were, 

 the vapours which float in the regions of the 

 'heir large inflections and channels are 



air. 



considered as so many basons prepared for 

 the reception of those thick vapours, and im- 

 petuous rains, which descend into them. The 

 huge caverns beneath are so many magazines 

 or conservatories of water for the peculiar 



