BEN-MORE. 



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of these mountains are occasioned by particular 

 strata having been more indestructible than others* 

 near them ; which, accordingly, in giving way, 

 and gradually wasting, have formed the interme- 

 diate valleys and water courses. An attentive 

 eye may even trace the same grand strata, passing 

 from one mountain to another, and not greatly 

 lowered in the hollows which divide the moun- 

 tains ; for the hollows or valleys, parallel to the 

 strata, are in general the deepest, and not those by 

 which the strata are crossed. This fact appears 

 to furnish a strong argument against the theory of 

 such mountains having been elevated individually 

 by the power of fire. The great mass of alpine 

 substances had been already formed by nature, 

 in different grand ranges ; and the shaping of the 

 particular mountains, as well as of the smaller 

 mountain-ranges, seems to have been the subse- 

 quent effect of decomposition and waste, while 

 the waters of the globe were diminishing in 

 level *. 



* Humboldt conceives, that the direction and acclivity 

 of mountains and mountain-ranges, are phenomena poste- 

 rior to the existence of the grand strata, which compose 

 the crust of the earth, and out of which he considers these 

 inequalities on the surface, as having been formed. See 

 his opinion on this subject, quoted in page 116, of the ex - 

 cellent translation, by my friend Br G. Anderson ? qf Von 

 Buch's Description of the Environs of Landecfe. 



P 



