SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 39 



surrounding ones which form its sides, is a mere re- 

 petition of the proposition itself; and that, among 

 many eminences, one or more should be higher than 

 the others, is an arrangement that might be expected. 

 If rivers run down the sides of a lengthened declivity 

 they must in time produce ridges at angles to its 

 course ; and where these rivers themselves bend at 

 angles, their boundaries must correspond, or a salient 

 angle must be opposed to a re-entering one. These 

 are truisms which add nothing to knowledge ; arid the 

 discussion of them may be left to those in whose eyes 

 they possess estimation. 



As the direction of mountain ridges has been said 

 to bear a certain constant relation to the meridian, so 

 it has been asserted that the steepest declivities and 

 precipices always respected one point of the horizon. 

 A predominant North-west declivity has been sup- 

 posed, for example, to exist in Scotland ; and indeed 

 those who have directed all their mountain chains to 

 the North-east, have placed their precipices to the 

 North-west. By comparing testimonies, the state of 

 the facts will soon appear ; and it will then be time 

 enough to shew what, from geological considerations, 

 they ought to be. 



Bergman first appears to have remarked that, in 

 North ridges, the western declivity was steepest, and 

 in east ones the southern ; but, in quoting his exam- 

 ples, he has overlooked the exceptions. The obser- 

 vations of Buffon, De La Metherie, and others, rest 

 on similar grounds ; and, according to Forster, the 

 south and south east sides are the steepest. In the 

 Crimea, in the Hartz, in the mountains which sepa- 

 rate Saxony from Bohemia, and in the Carpathians, 

 the southern declivity is the most rapid \ as is also the 

 case in Guiana, according to Condamine. The chain 



