42 



A HISTORY OF 



e of man ; and those orifices by which 

 Ihe water is discharged upon the plain, are 

 so situated as to enrich and render them 

 fruitful, instead of returning through subter- 

 raneous channels to the sea, after the perform- 

 ance of a tedious and fruitless circulation. 3 



However this be, certain it is, that almost 

 all our great rivers find their source among 

 mountains ; and, in general, the more exten- 

 sive the mountain, the greater the river: thus 

 the river Amazon, the greatest in the world, 

 has its source among the Andes, which are 

 the highest mountains on the globe ; the ri- 

 ver Niger travels a long course of several 

 hundred miles from the mountains of the 

 Moon, the highest in all Africa; and the Da- 

 nube and the Rhine proceed from the Alps, 

 which are probably the highest mountains of 

 Europe. 



It needs scarcely be said, that, with respect 

 to height, there are many sizes of mountains, 

 from the gently rising upland, to the tall crag- 



y precipice. The appearance is in general 

 ifferent in those of different magnitudes. The 

 first are clothed with verdure to the very tops, 

 and only seem to ascend to improve our pros- 

 pects, or supply us with a purer air : but the 

 lofty mountains of the oilier class have a very 

 different aspect. At a distance their tops are 

 seen, in wavy ridges, of the very colour of the 

 clouds, and only to be distinguished from 

 them by their figure; which, as I have said, 

 resembles the billows of the sea. b As we ap- 

 proach, the mountain assumes a deeper co- 

 lour ; it gathers upon the sky, and seems to 

 hide half the horizon behind it. Its summits 

 also are become more distinct, and appear 

 with a broken and perpendicular line. What 

 at first seemed a single hill, is now found to 

 be a chain of continued mountains, whose 

 tops running along in ridges, are embosomed 

 in each other; so that the curvatures of one 

 are fitted to the prominences of the opposite 

 side, and form a winding valley between, of- 

 ten of several miles in extent ; and all the 

 way continuing nearly of the same breadth. 



Nothing can be finer, or more exact, than 

 Mr. Pope's description of a traveller stniining 

 tip the Alps. Every mountain he comes to 



a Nature Displayed, vol. iii. p. 88. 



h Lettres 1'hiloFophiques sur la Formation, & r r. p. IOC. 



he thinks will be the last; he finds, however, 

 an unexpected hill rise before him ; and thaf 

 being scaled, he finds the highest summit al- 

 most at as great a distance as before. Upon 

 quitting the plain, he might have left a green 

 and fertile soil, and a climate warm and pleas- 

 ing. As he ascends, the ground assumes a 

 more russet colour; the grass becomes more 

 mossy, and the weather more moderate. Still 

 as he ascends, the weather becomes more 

 cold, and the earth more barren. In this dreary 

 passage he is often entertained with a little 

 valley of surprising verdure, caused by the 

 reflected heat of the sun collected into a nar- 

 row spot on the surrounding heights. But it 

 much more frequently happens that he sees 

 only frightful precipices beneath, and lakes of 

 amazing depths; from whence rivers are 

 formed, and fountains derive their original. 

 On those places next the highest summits, 

 vegetation is scarcely carried on ; here and 

 there a few plants of the most hardy kind ap- 

 pear. The air is intolerably cold ; either 

 continually refrigerated with frosts, or dis- 

 turbed 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 ele- 

 ments; clouds at his feet, and thunders dart- 

 ing upwards from their bosoms below." A 

 thousand meteors, which are never seen on 

 the plain, present themselves. Circular rain- 

 bows;* 1 mock suns; the shadow of the moun- 

 tain projected upon the body of the air : e and 

 the traveller's own image, reflected as in a 

 looking-glass, upon the opposite cloud/ 



Such are, in general, the wonders that pre- 

 sent themselves to a traveller in bis journey 

 either over the Alps or the Andes. But we 

 must not suppose that this picture exhibits 

 either a constant 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 



Ulloa. vol. i. d Ibid. 



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



