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uninstructive. Let us confine our attention, at present, to some of the most striking phenomena of the mineral kingdom.

Among stones there is not one that deserves more attention than the magnet, but of this I have already treated in a former paper1.

Properties equally wonderful are to be found in quicksilver. It yields to every form we may choose to give it; but it never fails to resume that which is natural to it. Exposed to the fire, it ascends in fume. By a chemical process it may be converted into a hard and transparent crystal; but it may be reduced again to its original fluidity. Its uses in medicine, in the barometer, in looking-glasses, in gilding, &c. are well known. But a minute account of all its properties would fill a volume.

Gold is the principal and most valuable of all the metals, not only on account of its scarcity, but of its many admirable properties. Of all bodies it is the most tenacious and unalterable; insomuch that it will bear the action of the most violent fire for two months, without any sensible diminution of its weight. Its parts are so subtile, that a grain of leaf gold can be made to cover fifty square inches; so that upon the two surfaces, on a slight inspection, may be distinguished four millions of parts. And its ductility is such, that from a single grain may be drawn a wire five hundred feet long.

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The wonderful form of common salt, the precious stones, the singular shapes of the ores, or metals in their mineral state, the astonishing particulars we have already noticed of extraneous fossils, and a variety of inexhaustible objects of inquiry in the mineral kingdom, seem constituted, with the other wonders of creation, to excite our curiosity. And it must be confessed, that there is not an employment

'No. LII, On Magnetism and the Mariner's Compass.

of the mind productive of greater delight, of more solid satisfaction, or of a greater variety of enjoyment, than an attentive contemplation of the works of Nature. Were we to live for ages in this world, and to employ every day in studying the singularities of the mineral kingdom only, we should still find innumerable things which we could not explain, which would excite more and more our curiosity, and yet continue inscrutable by our finite capacities. Let us employ then, at least, since the duration of our lives scarcely extends beyond half a century, let us well employ the short time that is granted to us here, and devote as much of it as the necessary duties of life will permit, to the study of Nature; and, by thus enriching our minds, treasure up the most innocent and the most inexhaustible stores of knowledge and pleasure. The exquisite delight which such studies afford, will be heightened more and more, in proportion as we meditate on the ends which the Creator has proposed in his works; for the wonders of Nature are more admirable and more sublime than all the productions of human art. These are not always compatible with our welfare; and, so far from rendering us either wiser or better, they are often the mere objects of uninstructive admiration. But all the works of Nature, even the most singular and inexplicable, have for their object the felicity of the whole creation. They exist, not merely to be contemplated as objects of sight, but to be enjoyed; and all, without exception, proclaim unspeakable goodness, as well as unsearchable wisdom and unbounded power.

Oh, Nature, all-sufficient, over all!

Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works!
Snatch me to heaven; thy rolling wonders there,
World beyond world in infinite extent,
Profusely scattered o'er the blue immense,

Show me; their motions, periods, and their laws,

Give me to scan; through the disclosing deep
Light my blind way; the mineral strata there;
Thrust, blooming, thence the vegetable world;
O'er that the rising system, more complex,
Of animals; and higher still, the mind,
The varied scene of quick-compounded thought,
And where the mixing passions endless shift;
These ever open to my ravished eye;

A search the flight of time can ne'er exhaust!

THOMSON.

No. LXXVI.

ON MOUNTAINS.

So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;
Th' eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;
But, those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way,
Th' increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise. POPE.

EMERGING from the vast abysses of the earth, we proceed once more to contemplate its external appearance in all its picturesque and pleasing, or magnificent and tremendous varieties. Mountains are the first objects that strike the imagination, and excite our curiosity, in the wonderful prospect before us. There is nothing in all nature, perhaps, that can impress a spectator, unaccustomed to these views, with such ideas of solemnity and awe as the stupendous piles of Nature, before which the proudest monuments of human art dwindle into minuteness and insignificance.

In countries where there is nothing but plains, the smallest elevations are apt to excite our wonder.

In Holland, the whole surface of which is flat, a little ridge of hills is shown, near the sea-side, which the great Boerhaave generally mentioned to his pupils as mountains of no small consequence. But what would be the sensations of such an audience, could they be presented at once with a view of the heights and precipices of the Alps or of the Andes! Even in this island we have no adequate ideas of a mountain prospect. Our hills are generally sloping from the plain, and clothed to their very summits with verdure. It is scarcely possible, therefore, to exalt our conceptions to those immense piles, whose tops faintly appear behind intervening clouds, sharp and precipitate, and soar to heights which human avarice or curiosity have never been able to ascend:

Rocks rich in gems, and mountains big with mines,
That on the high equator ridgy rise,

Whence many a bursting stream auriferous plays.

THOMSON.

The origin of mountains is a subject which has given rise to many philosophical disquisitions. Burnet, Whiston, Woodward, and Buffon, have endeavoured to account for them in their respective theories of the earth. Mr. Ray, M. le Cat, and M. Pallas, have likewise their systems. But the most satisfactory account, in my opinion, is that given by Mr. Whitehurst, in his Inquiry into the Original State and Formation of the Earth. According to this excellent philosopher (who, instead of speculative inquiries in the closet, descended into the bowels of the earth in quest of data from which we might draw just or probable inferences) the antediluvian world was very different from that which we contemplate at present. It consisted only of small islands gradually rising from the deep; or of smooth, even, and uniform elevations: whereas the world on which we tread at present consists of immense continents and moun

tains, of steep or impending shores, craggy rocks, and extensive valleys and caverns. Our marine exuvia formerly lay at the bottom of the ocean of the primitive world; whereas many of them are now situate near the tops of those immense mountains, the Alps and the Andes, and at great distances from the sea. To account for so great a revolution, Mr. Whitehurst has collected many instances from history of stupendous changes that have been produced on the surface and in the bowels of the earth. He enumerates some of the more striking examples of the rising of islands, such as Santorini, Hiera, &c. from the bottom of the sea, attended with eruptions of fire. He mentions several islands and mountains having volcanic appearances, and which may likewise be supposed to owe their origin to the same cause, in times anterior to all history. Such are Iceland, Fayal, &c. in the northern sea; St. Helena and Ascension islands, between Africa and Brazil; Easter or Davis' island, Otaheite, &c. in the Southern Ocean; several of the Moluccas, in the Indian Sea; Madeira, several of the Azores and the Antilles, &c. in the Atlantic Ocean; the Lipari islands, Ischia, &c. in the Mediterranean. After collecting many instances of mountains formed, and large districts of land swallowed up, shattered, and rent asunder by earthquakes, and particularly by volcanos, he observes that we may, by analogy, be justified in inferring, that all similar appearances may have been the effects of the same cause; and though vestiges of volcanos are not every where visible, the earth exhibits indications of their having existed in so many different regions, that there is reason to suppose that subterraneous fire must, at different times, have existed universally in its bowels. He then proceeds to show that this cause, acting on a larger scale, produced, at the same time, the immense continent and mountains in the present globe and the universal deluge.

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