250 ^N THE CRYSTALS IN J^AVA?. 



tions of rivers may be formed, but which cannot form them, does notxeach 

 thero°^ ^^'"^ ^^^ bottom of the sea : its waves drive it back, and keep it 

 on the shore, where it adds daily to the first boundaries of 

 the continents, 

 and are too On this occasion I shall repeat a remark I have severa} 



small to affect times made. These additions are so trifline, compared 

 the level of the . , , „ , , , &' r 



ocean. w^h the extent of the sea, that they cannot produce any 



perceptible chano-e in its level. It is these additions to the 

 land that have been so often mistaken, and quoted as proofs? 

 .of the retiring of the sea. 

 Volcanoes ^7 what signs can we know ancient volcanoes wherever 



could not be tJ^ey exist remote from the sea, if not by their form, and 

 from other ^^^ nature of the substances that distinguish them ? They 

 mountains, if must then be different from all other mountains, or they 

 differ from would be confounded together, and these could not be 

 tlieni. distinguished from volcanoes. The truth is then, that all 



the mountains we know, the Alps, the Jura, the Pyrenees, 

 and all those of our continents, have no relation to volcanic 

 mountains; that their strata, and the matters that compose 

 them, have been formed in water, and fire has had no con^. 

 cern in their production. 

 Valley of Qui- It was from these distinguishing and invariable character* 

 of volcanoes, and of the soil around them, that in my pre? 

 ceding observations I employed the following expressions, 

 ** When the valley of Quito, rfnd the mountains that border 

 it, shall be observed by naturalists experienced in the know- 

 ledge of volcanoes and volcanic substances, I have no doubt 

 they will perceive, that the state of things js as I have said.'* 

 I should have been far from thus expressing myself, if other 

 and thevolca- lands and other mountains had been the subject. But the 

 imes 01 ering ^^,^^^ mountains that skirt that celebrated valley on either 

 hand being certainly volcanoes, three of which are not yet 

 extinct, and its soil being compose(i of their vast eruptions, 

 I could venture tq^give this opinion without apprehension of 

 going too far, or of wanting that proper diffidence a raai^ 

 ought to have in his own knowledge. 

 Ancient volca- The ancient volcanoes observed «n the surfaces of conti- 

 Aan soofe as- "^"^^ """^ not so numerous as Mr. Fl. de Bellevue imagines, 

 sert. when he says, that volcanoes, either burning or extinct, 



s is a 

 great 



