on. The hideous mountains and
precipitous rocks, which are so apt to inspire horror and discontentment
in minds which look at sensible objects only for immediate pleasure,
afford matter of the most instructive speculation to the philosopher,
who studies the wisdom of nature through the medium of things. As, on
the one hand, the summit of the mountain may be supposed the point of
absolute sterility, so, on the other, the sandy desert, moved by nothing
but the parching winds of continents distant from the sources of
abundant rains, finishes the scale of natural fertility, which thus
diminishes in the two opposite extremes of hot and dry, of cold and wet;
thus is provided an indefinite variety of soils and climates for that
diversity of living organised bodies with which the world is provided
for the use of man. But, between those two extremes, of mountains
covered with perpetual snow, and parched plains in which every living
thing must perish, we find the most pleasant subject of contemplation,
in studying the means employed in nature for producing the beautiful
and benevolent system of hills and valleys, of fertile soils and
well watered plains, of the most agreeable circumstances and proper
situations for every thing that lives, and for the preservation of an
indefinite variety of organised bodies which propagate their species.

Without this philosophic view of things, the prospect of the surface of
this earth is far from giving always satisfaction or contentment to the
mind of man, who is subject to be continually displeased with that which
is presented to his view, and which, in his opinion, is not the best; in
his partial views of things, it is either too high or too low, too cold
or too warm, too moist or too dry, too stiff for the labour of his
plough, or too loose for the growing of his corn. But, considering
nature as the common parent of living growing propagating bodies, which
require an indefinite variety of soils and climates, the philosopher
finds the most benevolent purpose in the end proposed, or effect which
is attained, and sees perfect wisdom in the effectual means which are
employed. This is the view that I would wish men of science to take; and
it is for this purpose that I am now to examine the phenomena of the
surface of this earth.

If strata, formed at the bottom of the sea, had been consolidated by
internal operations proper to the earth, and afterwards raised for the
purpose of a habitable worl