JOURNEY OVER MOUNT GOTTHARD. 32I 



deftroy, all muft yield before them, and when they 

 undertake to conftrudt fome lafting work, they feem 

 to bid defiance to nature. Defert regions are turned 

 into fumptuous and fertile abodes of men ; large cities 

 and magnificent edifices ftart up as if by a new crea- 

 tion, to the aftonifhment of the neighbouring beholder. 

 The thunders and the apparently irrefiftible force of ar- 

 tillery, armies and fleets, are about the higheil and 

 grandeft that mankind in general can conceive. 



It very often occurred to me during my expedition 

 over the Alps, to hold up to my mind certain effects of 

 nature, which, without effort, without any extraor- 

 dinary exertion of her powers, might very eafily with- 

 Hand the combined force not only of one, but of feve- 

 ral nations ; and then all the former ideas were obli- 

 terated, and inftantaneoufly vanilhed into nothing. I 

 figured to myfelf a vaft army, provided with all the 

 dreadful implements of devaluation, encamped in fome 

 one of thefe vallies, and thought how quickly fuch a 

 force might be entirely deftroyed by the falling frag- 

 ment of a rock overhanging that valley ; fo little could 

 the united force of fuch a hoft be able to effect againft 

 fo eafily poffible an occurrence, I then felt that it 

 would be as eafy for nature to crufh fuch a prodigious 

 hoft as a moth. Inftances of the overthrow of a whole 

 mountain might happen, even from very flight caufes, 

 and have happened in antient times, as may every 

 where be eafily perceived in mountainous countries. 



No lefs fuddenly might water floods rufh down from 

 the lofty Alps, that fhould fweep away whole nations 

 from the plain, with all the glories of their works. 

 To this end nothing more is neceffary, than that in the 

 vol. n e y fpring- 



