however as I have already admitted. The rocks are 

 every where represented as being rude, angular, point^ 

 ed and craggy, and often terrifick even to behold. 



If, according to some, the soil which covers the far 

 greater portion of the earth, and which renders it the 

 fit habitation of man, be owing to the gradual disinte- 

 gration of rocks ; why is it that this portion of the 

 globe, which probably embraces all the different for- 

 mations which are known in geology, is so far behind 

 every other in this respect ? If we examine the ex- 

 tremes of temperature which prevail in those lati- 

 tudes, and on which depends almost entirely the dis- 

 integration of thft rocks, we shall find ample reason to 

 believe that this part of the globe would have been 

 the most abundantly fertilized of any upon earth. 

 Yet it is destitute, notwithstanding its being for more 

 than half the year frozen, as it were to the centre ; 

 and during the other half or portion, it experiences 

 the genial influence of the sun to a degree so great, as to 

 produce, in the crevices of the rocks, the leafing, the 

 budding, and the luxuriant blooming of the rose, as 

 well as in any other part of the globe : still these 

 rocks are naked and destitute of soil ; although they 

 have lain exposed to all the revolutions of time pro- 

 bably from the beginning of the world. 



Such being the facts, who will persist in advocating 

 the opinion, that the height of our mountains is annual- 

 ly and gradually decreasing, to be ultimately levelled 

 with the vallies 5 or pretend that the soil which covers 



