79 
OF CORNWALL. 
which will ferve to elucidate and eftablifh this hypothecs. 
So far for accounting for the different levels in which we find 
fea fand. 
Since I have juft now mentioned thofe inequalities in the furface sect.iv. 
of the earth, called Mountains, and made little account of their Origin of 
height, it may not be amifs to fay fomething of their origin, height, Mountalns * 
and the proportion that height bears to the diameter of the globe. 
This digreftion may be perhaps the more excufable, becaufe fome 
whimfical theorifts have reprefented Mountains as of hideous height, 
deforming the earth, unfit to proceed from the hand of God, and 
only the wrecks and ruins of the antediluvian world. I fhall not 
here detain the reader with the various opinions of the learned on 
this fubjedt, perfuading myfelf, that the moft fimple and brief ac- 
count will beft fuit this work, and appear to the candid moft agree- 
able to the ordinary operations of nature. 
Mountains may be divided (as fands have been before) into natural 
and factitious, or into primaeval, and thofe of a later date. The 
factitious are either the fudden effects of earthquakes, or the more 
gradual productions of vulcanoes, which throw up fuch quantities of 
ftone, earth, and afhes, as raife firft heaps, then hills, then moun- 
tains : Thefe are not what I would treat of here : the queftion 
is, how fuch vaft bodies as the Alps, the Appennines, the Andes, 
and other lofty mountains were generated, and came to exceed fo 
much in height the adjacent lands. 
Let it be granted, that the materials, or elements of which our The confll ' 
o 0 1 tuent parts 
globe confifts, were, at firft, in a mixed indiftinct ftate; that the prin- of the globe 
ciples of folid and fluid bodies exifted at the fame time, but dif- militate, 
perfed ; that the ftony particles were intermixed with earth, both dif- 
fevered by water, that the fire and air alfo were included in the general 
mafs. This was the firft ftate of our globe, the chaos of the more learn- 
ed part of the heathen world, confirmed by the Mofaical Account of 
the creation *, and agreeable to the appearances of natural bodies, where 
we find earth inclofed in ftone, one fort of ftone in another, the ftrata 
divided by fiffures, fome lighter ftrata underneath, and fome hea- 
vier above; thefe were the little diforderly mifplacings which 
could not but enfue from a mafs including the unconnected 
parts of fuch a variety of bodies. When things were to be reduced ^ v u ‘J t d e J nd 
into order, the folids were preadapted by the divine power to form 
the foundation, or the ftiffhings (if I may fo fay) of the globe ; ftones 
fixed themfelves, by their own gravitation in the loweft parts of the 
a Gen. i. where we find the earth gradually pro- 
ceeding from a ftate of immaturity, to a ftate of 
order, habitancy, and fertility, in the fpace of fix 
days and nights. 
earth, 
