Page images
PDF
EPUB

its violence, and with such velocity as to dazzle the sight; while my fears were increased by the dreadful concussions of the precipice, and the fall of enormous rocks; the only sounds that were heard in this frightful situation."

In comparison with the dangerous ascent thus described by the Spanish philosopher, a passage over the Alps, and a journey across the Pyrenees, appear only excursions. These are the most lofty mountains in Europe; but the Alps are little more than one half the height of the Andes, of which one (Chimborazo), we know, from geometrical and barometrical mensurations, is 20,280 feet above the level of the sea. But lofty as are the highest mountains on the earth, it has been demonstrated, that they are nothing compared to its prodigious magnitude. For instance, what proportion the thickness of a human hair bears to a globe eighty inches diameter, the same does a mountain, a quarter of a mile high, bear to the whole globe'.

Mountains appear, to many, defects and blemishes. in the earth; but they are certainly of the greatest service to the well-being both of man and other animals. Many creatures cannot live but in particular situations; and even the tops of the highest and coldest mountains are the only places where some creatures will live: of this kind are the ibex and chamois among quadrupeds, and the lagopus among birds. They serve as skreens to keep off the cold

would imagine that he had either copied, or anticipated, the description here given by the ingenious Spaniard :

With aspect mild, and elevated eye,
Behold him seated on a mount serene,
Above the fogs of sense, and passion's storm;
All the black cares and tumults of this life,
Like harmless thunders, breaking at his feet,
Excite his pity, not impair his peace.

› Whitehurst's Inquiry, ch. xii.

blasts of the northern and eastern winds. They also serve for the production of several vegetables and minerals which are not found in any other soil: they enable us to keep those mines dry which furnish the most useful metals. Besides, the long ridges and chains of lofty mountains being generally found to run from east to west, serve to stop the evagation of the vapours toward the poles, without which they would all run from the hot countries, and leave them destitute of rain. Mr. Ray adds, that they condense those vapours, like alembic heads, into clouds; and thus, by a kind of external distillation, give origin to springs and rivers; and by amassing, cooling, and condensing them, turn them into rain, and thus render habitable the fervid regions of the torrid zone. The supply, moreover, which they give to springs and rivers, by stopping and condensing the clouds, is rendered more copious still by the prodigious quantities of snow by which their summits are crowned. This last circumstance in particular, is noticed by our philosophical poets:

When mid the lifeless summits proud

Of Alpine cliffs, where to the gelid sky
Snows piled on snows in wint'ry torpor lie,
The rays divine of vernal Phoebus play;

Th' awakened heaps, in streamlets from on high,
Roused into action, lively leap away,

Glad warbling through the vales, in their new being gay,

THOMSON

Thus on the soil with heat immoderate dried,
To which the rain's pure treasures are denied,
The mountains more sublime in ether rise,
Transfix the clouds, and tower amid the skies
The snowy fleeces, which their heads involve,
Still stay in part, and still in part dissolve;
Torrents and loud impetuous cataracts

Through roads abrupt, and rude unfashioned tracts,
Roll down the lofty mountain's channelled sides,
And to the vale convey their foaming tides;
At length, to make their various currents one,
The congregated floods together run ;

[blocks in formation]

These confluent streams make some great river's head,
By stores still melting and descending fed;
Thus from th' aspiring Mountains of the Moon1,
Dissolving treasures rush in torrents down,
Which pass the sun-burnt realms and sandy soil,
And bless th' Egyptian nation with their Nile:
Then whosoe'er his secret rise would know
Must climb the hills, and trace his head in snow;
And through the Rhine, the Danube, and the Rhone,
All ample rivers of our milder zone,

While they advance along the flats and plains,
Spread by the showers augmented, and the rains;
Yet these their source and first beginning owe
To stores, that from the Alpine mountains flow;
Hence, when the snows in winter cease to weep,
And undissolved their flaky texture keep,
The banks with ease their humble streams contain,
Which swell in summer, and those banks disdain.

BLACKMORE.

But the benefit of mountains, in general, is not only, that vapours driven against them are condensed, so as to be precipitated through the chinks of the rocks, but that afterward, in their bowels, they are preserved, till they form rivulets, and then rivers. Vapours would fall in rain or dew, although there were no mountains; but then they would fall equally, over considerable places of the globe at once, and thus would be sucked deep in the ground, or make a universal puddle. On the contrary, by means of mountains, they are perpetually pouring down in particular places, and treasuring up a constant supply to the rivers. Another considerable use of them is the determination of these rivers; for if there could have been rivers without mountains, yet they could have flowed in a straight line only, if they had flowed at all; whereas, by these eminences placed up and down, they make innumerable turnings and windings, by which they water and enrich the soil of many different countries in one

1 Mountains in Africa so called.

course, and at last disembogue, sometimes in several mouths, into the sea. But, not to be too diffusive, I shall conclude, with observing, that these stupendous masses are not, as some have supposed, mere incumbrances of the creation, or rude and useless excrescences of the globe, but in a variety of instances, add greatly to its beauty, and answer many excellent purposes. In a word, when we contemplate the mountains among the other innumerable displays of the goodness, wisdom, and omnipotence of the Universal Creator, well may we exclaim with the prophet Habakkuk, The everlasting mountains were scattered-His ways are everlasting or in the sublime personification of the Psalmist, Mountains and all hills-praise the name of the Lord; for his name alone is excellent ; his glory is above the earth and heaven.'

[ocr errors]

No. LXXVIII.

THE CONCLUSION.

The whole up-tracing, from the dreary void,
The chain of causes and effects, to Him,
The world-producing Essence, who alone
Possesses being.

THOMSON.

IN the conduct of the Contemplative Philosopher, of which this number is the conclusion, I have wandered into some of the most fertile regions of philosophical discussion, and collected a variety of the wonderful phenomena of Nature, as rational subjects of curiosity and investigation. My young

readers, in particular, I have endeavoured to allure to these improving inquiries, by strewing, as it were, each winding path with flowers, showing, at the same time, how much some of the finest passages in poetry are indebted, for their beauty, to the gay and lively, or to the sublime, and even terrific images, which are every where so profusely scattered. But I have deemed this a consideration of infinitely less moment, than that of inculcating the principles of piety and virtue, by occasionally introducing such religious and moral reflections as each subject had a tendency to inspire; and pointing out, as the glorious theme of all, the irresistible indications of a Supreme Being, the Great Creator and Governor of Universal Nature.

Ere the rising sun

Shone o'er the deep, or 'mid the vault of night
The moon her silver lamp suspended: ere

The vales with springs were watered, or with groves
Of oak or pine the ancient hills were crowned;
Then the Great Spirit, whom his works adore,
Within his own deep essence viewed the forms,
The forms eternal of created things:

The radiant sun; the moon's nocturnal lamp;
The mountains and the streams: the ample stores
Of earth, of heaven, of Nature. From the first,
On that full scene his love divine he fixed,
His admiration. Till, in time complete,
What he admired and loved his vital power
Unfolded into being. Hence the breath
Of life informing each organic frame :

Hence the green earth, and wild resounding waves:
Hence light and shade, alternate; warmth and cold;
And bright autumnal skies, and vernal showers,
And all the fair variety of things.

AKENSIDE.

It is observable, that however opposite are the hypotheses of Atheism and Theism, there is one common circumstance in which they agree; and that is, that something must have been, from all eternity, self-existent and independent. But the

« PreviousContinue »