to carry him, by the
observations of other-men, to all the quarters of the globe.

Mr Marsden, without pretending to be a natural historian, gives us a
very good picture of the water-worn surface of Sumatra. History of
Sumatra, page 20.

"Along the western coast of the island, the low country, or space of
land which extends from the sea shore to the foot of the mountains, is
intersected and rendered uneven to a surprising degree, by swamps, whose
irregular and winding course may in some places be traced in a continual
chain for many miles till they discharge themselves either into the sea,
or some neighbouring lake, or the fens that are so commonly found near
the banks of the larger rivers, and receive their over flowings in the
rainy monsoons. The spots of land, which these swamps incompass, become
so many islands and peninsulas, sometimes flat at the top, and often
mere ridges; having in some places, a gentle declivity, and in others
descending almost perpendicularly to the depth of an hundred feet. In
few parts of the country of Bencoolen or of the northern districts
adjacent to it, could a tolerable level space of four hundred yards be
marked out: about Soogey-lamo in particular, there is not a plain to
be met with of the fourth part of that extent. I have often from an
elevated situation, where a wider range was subjected to the eye,
surveyed with admiration the uncommon face which nature assumes, and
made enquiries and attended to conjectures on the causes of those
inequalities. Some chose to attribute them to the successive concussions
of earthquakes, through a course of centuries. But they do not seem to
be the effect of such a cause. There are no abrupt fissures; the hollows
and swellings are for the most part smooth and regularly sloping, so as
to exhibit not unfrequently, the appearance of an amphitheatre, and they
are clothed with verdure from the summit to the edge of the swamp. From
this latter circumstance, it is also evident that they are not, as
others suppose, occasioned by the falls of heavy rains that deluge the
country for one half of the year. The most summary way for accounting
for this extraordinary unevenness of the surface were to conclude, that
in the original construction of our globe, Sumatra was thus formed by
the same hand which spread out the sandy plains of Arabia, and raised up
the Alps and Andes beyond the regions of the clouds." Our author then,
after reprobating this idea, endeavou