are, and ever have been, the same in height, in all 

 human probability, that they were from the com- 

 mencement of time. This I think will appear from 

 the following facts. 



1st. These heights, I believe, are at an elevation so 

 great that neither animals nor vegetables have been 

 known to exist upon them ; consequently the disinte- 

 gration of the rocks could never have been occasioned 

 by the decomposition of the latter. 



Sdly. There having been no variation of tempera- 

 ture, such as heat and dry, or wet and dry, by which 

 the particles of rocks were alternately expanded and 

 contracted, thereby causing them to fall to pieces ; 

 no disintegration could possibly take place from this 

 cause. 



3dly, and lastly. They having been ever clothed 

 with perennial snow and ice, ever frozen and never 

 thaived, no decomposition or disintegration could pos- 

 sibly have been occasioned from this cause. There- 

 fore they must, of necessity, have remained, as was 

 intended, always the same from the period of their 

 ultimate completion to the present day.* 



* To the kind attention of Dr. William Howard, of this city, 

 \yholately ascended Mount Blanc, I am indebted for a fine speci- 

 men of granite, obtained by himself from the rock en masse, at 

 the hoary summit of that beacon of Aurora, the highest point in 

 Europe. 



It is impossible to conceive any thing better calculated to con- 

 firm tbe opinion which I have advanced, on the indestructibility of 



