THE EAHTH. 105 



a broken and perpendicular line. What at first seemed a single 

 bill, 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, often of seve- 

 ral miles in extent ; and all the way continuing nearly of the 

 same breadth. 



Nothing can be finer, or more exact, than Mr Pope's descrip- 

 tion of a traveller straining up the Alps. E very mountain he 

 comes to, he thinks ^vill be the last ; he finds, however, an un- 

 expected hill rise before him ; and that being scaled, he finds 

 the highest summit almost at as great distance as before. 

 Upon quitting the plain, he might have left a green and fertile 

 soil, and a climate warm and pleasing. 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 col- 

 lected into a narrow spot on the surrounding heights. But it 

 much more frequently happens that he sees only frightful pre- 

 cipices 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 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 ac- 

 cumulating. Upon emerging from this war of the elements, he 

 ascends into a purer and a 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 ; clouds at his feet, and thunders 

 darting upwards from their bosoms below.^ A thousand meteors, 

 which are never seen on the plain, present themselves. Circu- 

 lar rainbows ;* mock suns ; the shadow of the mountain pro- 

 jected upon the body of the air ;* and the traveller's own image 

 reflected as in a looking-glass, upon the opposite cloud.' 



3 Ulloa, vol '■ 5 Phil. Trans, vol v. p. 153. 



i Ibid. 6 Ulloa, vol 



