THE EARIrf. 15 



yet still demand oiu' curiosity. The most obnous beauty that 

 every where strikes the eye is the verdant covering of the earth, 

 which is formed by a happy mixture of herbs and trees of various 

 magnitudes and uses. It has been often remarked, that no 

 colour refreshes the sight so much as green : and it may be 

 added, as a further proof of the assertion, that the inhabitants of 

 those places where the fields are continually white with snow, 

 generally become blind long before the usual course of nature. 



This advantage, which arises from the verdure of the fields, is 

 not a little improved by their agreeable inequalities. There are 

 scarcely two natural landscapes that offer prospects entirely 

 resembling each other ; their risings and depressions, their 

 hills. and valleys, are never entirely the same, but always offer 

 something new to entertain and refresh the imagination. 



But to increase the beauties of the face of nature, the landscape 

 is enlivened by springs and lakes, and intersected by rivulets. 

 These lend a brightness to the prospect ; give motion and 

 coolness to the air ; and, what is much more important, fur- 

 nish health and subsistence to animated nature. 



Such are the most obvious and tranquil objects that every 

 where offer : but there are objects of a more awful and magnifi- 

 cent kind ; the Mountain rising above the clouds, and topped 

 with snow ; the River pouring down its sides, increasing as it 

 runs, and losing itself, at last, in the ocean ; the Ocean spread- 

 ing its immense sheet of waters over one half of the globe, swell- 

 ing and subsiding at well-known intervals, and forming a 

 communication between the most distant parts of the earth. 



If we leave those objects that seem to be natural to our earth, 

 and keep the same constant tenor, we are presented with the 

 great irregularities of nature : the burning mountain ; the abrupt 

 precipice ; the unfathomable cavern ; the headlong cataract ; and 

 the rapid whirlpool. 



K we carry our curiosity a little further, and descend to the 

 objects immediately below the surface of the globe, we shall 

 there find wonders still as amazing. We first perceive the 

 earth, for the most part, Mng in regular beds or layers, every 

 bed growing thicker in proportion as it lies deeper, and its con- 

 tent, more compact and heavy. We shall find, almost wherever 

 we make our subterranean inquiry, an amazing number of shells 

 that once belonged to aquatic animals. Here and there, at a dis- 



