l
view of this mountainous country, or that great mass of rock or solid
strata which has been either formed originally in its present shape, or
has been excavated by the constant operation of water running from the
summit in all the different directions.

On the one hand, it is supposed that the forming cause which had
produced those mountains, in collecting their materials at the bottom of
the sea, had also determined the shape in which their various ridges are
at present found; on the other hand, it is supposed that the destructive
causes, which operate in degrading mountains, have immediately
contributed to produce their present forms, and that it is only
mediately or more remotely that this shape has been determined by
mineral operations and the constitution of the solid parts, which thus
oppose the wearing operations of the surface with different degrees of
hardness and solidity. Whether natural appearances correspond with the
one or the other of those two different suppositions, every person who
has the opportunity of making such an examination, and has sufficient
knowledge of the subject to judge from his observation, will determine
for himself.

I will here give the opinion of a person who has had great opportunities
for this purpose, who is an intelligent as well as an attentive
observator, and who has had particularly this question in his view. It
is from 'Tableaux de la Suisse'[26].

[Footnote 26: "Discours sur l'Histoire Naturelle de la Suisse."]

"Quand nous nous sommes trouve sur ces points eleves, nous avons
toujours considere le total des montagnes prises ensemble, leurs
situations respectives, les unes par rapport aux autres; afin de
reconnoitre, s'il y avoit quelque chose de constant dans leurs position;
rien n'est plus varie. Dans la grande chaine de montagnes qui separe
le canton de Berne du Vallais d'un cote, et les Alpes qui separent le
Vallais de la Savoie de l'autre, en considerant le course du Rhone sous
differens points de vue, on n'a point vu que les angles saillans de ces
tres hautes montagnes fussent opposes aux angles rentrans des
montagnes qui sont vis-a-vis; Le fameux vallon qui est sur le haut du
Saint-Gothard, le point le plus eleve de l'Europe, contredit egalement
cette observation, aussi que les positions de la plus grande partie des
montagnes qui forment son vaste circuit. Le vallon de Scholenen, qui
a plus de huit lieues, et dans lequel la Reusse coule du sommet du
Saint-Gothar