324 JOURNEY OYER. MOUNT* GOTTHARD, 



ftreams and fources : but in fummer there is ftill an 

 additional caufe : On the high mountains a copious 

 dew defcends, and even the clouds which hang about 

 the mountains continually drop down water. I have 

 often beheld with aftonifhment how the water drops 

 off from every plant on the mountains, fo as to make 

 the ground all over wet. Some of the moifture col- 

 lects in little veins, and prefently runs off to augment 

 the fmaller ftreamlets; another part retires into the 

 earth, and runs together in little crevices of the rock, 

 from whence afterwards inceffant fprings arife. There- 

 fore the rocky hills are every where full of chinks ia 

 order to let off the dripping water. 



Hence one of the moft furprifing arrangements of 

 nature is readily to be accounted for. We fee at once 

 the reafon and the defign of the aftonifhing height of 

 the alpine hills. They muft be fo high, for reaching 

 the upper cold region of the air, that the mow may 

 remain upon them. We fee why thefe mountains are 

 in their original compofition of folid rock ; for, were 

 they of earth or of foft ftone, they would be gradu- 

 ally crumbled away by the descending ftreams, and at 

 length fettle together in low clumps, which muft occa- 

 lion a general devaluation of nature, as in that cafe the 

 above-mentioned refervoir of waters muft ceafe. 



I might adduce feveral more as plain indications of 

 a Being fupremely wife from the appointment of 

 mountains to the fervice of the general ceconbmy of 

 nature, if it were my intention to treat at large upon 

 the Subject. But thefe few are fufricient to fhew how 

 idly and abfurdly fome who pretend to be free-thinking 

 philofophers have judged concerning lofty mountains, 

 in deeming them to be remnants 6f a devaluation of 

 7 * the 



