f 676 ] 
The learned academician, founds his opinion of 
all mountains having been formed by fea-currents, 
principally upon two obfervations The firft is, that 
they are made up of ftrata compofed of fea-lhells, 
and petrified marine bodies of different kinds : the 
lecond, that in chains of mountains the prominent 
angles always correfpond with the depreffed ones on 
the oppofite fide of the valley, in the fame ferpentine 
way as we obferve in rivers, the banks of which are 
alternately hollowed and prominent, according to the 
different refifiance they give to the current of the wa- 
ter. This obfervation was firft made by Monf. Bour- 
guet, and muft be owned to be curious and intcreft- 
ing. Monf de Buffon is of opinion, that thefe two 
effential oblervations put together form an invincible 
argument in proof of his theory, and fucli as could 
fcarce have been expected in fo feemingly obfcure a 
point. As to the firft obfervation, that ali mountains are 
made up of ftrata compofed of marine bodies, it is 
fo far from being true, that no mountains , proper!)' fa 
called , contain fuch bodies : and as to the fecond, 
of the correfpondence of the oppofite angles of 
mountainous tracts, it docs not at all prove, as he 
would have it, that fea-currents have formed thefe 
mountains, but only that there have been foimerly 
fuch currents running between them, which cur- 
rents have given them that form we now obferve 
them to have. To affert, that becaufe currents of 
water have given them that figure, therefore they 
have produced them, is as ridiculous, as if one fhould 
fay. that a river had re red its own banks, merely 
becaufe it had given them a ferpentine form. 
IV. 
