tains present! Who would not be proud to climb the Alps, and the Pyrenees, the colour of which sometimes partake of that golden tint, which proclaims their summits to be in a region of serenity? Is there a Sicilian, who does not boast of Etna? Is there a Scot, who does not take pride in celebrating Ben Lomond? And is there an Italian, that is not vain of the Apennines 3 ? Who, that is alive to Nature and the muse, would not be delighted to wander up the sides of the Caucasus, the cone of Teneriffe, or those beautiful mountains, situated on the confines of three nations, so often and so justly celebrated by the poets of ancient Greece? And shall our friend, Colonna, be censured for confessing, that the proudest moments of his existence have been those, in which he has reached the summits of the Wrekin, the Ferwyn, and the cone of Langollen? Or when he has

The description of the general character of Alpine scenery, by Silius Italicus, is a masterpiece; and one of the finest passages in that unjustly neglected poet.

Cuncta gelu canaque æternum grandine tecta,

Atque ævi glaciem cohibent; &c. &c.—Lib. iii.

2 For a general account of the principal summits, passes, and valleys of the Pyrenees, see Raymond's Travels-Gold's Trans. p. 90. And for attraction of mountains, vide Baron de Zack's work, printed at Avignon.

Claudian, Lucan, and indeed almost all the Latin poets, take pleasure in marking the characters of these eminences, the abodes of perpetual snow, and the fruitful parents of a vast number of rivers.

* Teneriffe is not covered with perpetual snow, as many voyagers have reported*. Its volcano can be seen in a circuit of more than two hundred and sixty leagues; and from its peak appears an area, equal to one fourth of France.

VOL. I.

* Humboldt, Voy. Equin. Reg. i p. 101.

L

beheld, from the tops of Carnedds David and Llewellyn, a long chain of mountains, stretching from the north to the south, from Penmaenmawr to Cader Idris ? Snowdon rising in the centre, his head capt with snow, while his immense sides, black with rugged and impending rocks, stretched in long length below!

During his continuance on Pen-y-Voel, Coxe, the Swiss traveller, felt that extreme satisfaction, which is always experienced, when we are elevated on the highest point of the adjacent country. "The air," as that gentleman justly observes from Rousseau, " is more pure, the body more active, and the mind more serene. Lifted up above the dwellings of man, we discard all groveling and earthly passions; the thoughts assume a character of sublimity, proportionate to the grandeur of the surrounding objects ; and, as the body approaches nearer the ethereal regions, the soul imbibes a portion of their unalterable purity." In a note to this passage, Rousseau expresses his surprise, that a bath of the reviving air of the mountains is not more frequently prescribed by the physician, as well as by the moralist.

How often from the top of Penyvoel, the Holy Mountain, Pentlocpeplê, and the Disquilver, have I witnessed the last rays of the sun shooting along the vale, through which the Usk winds its fascinating course! When we meditate in plains, the globe appears to be at peace and in its infancy; among rocks and mountains it exhibits an air of warfare, or assumes the gravity of age. All indicate a deep solemnity, and an impressive power. We feel, as Lord Verulam would say, the Spirit of the Universe upon us! How often has my heart acknowledged the

benignity of the Eternal, when I have witnessed the waves, rolling their furious course along the rocks of St. Ismael's! And what a sacred awe has been impressed on my imagination, when, winding among the glens of Merioneth, I have seen the sun rising in its meridian over Cader Idris, or setting, in purple grandeur, in the bosom of the Irish sea. And, when among the precipices of Nant Frangon, I have seen the same glorious luminary rise, as it were, from its bed of coral; and beheld it sink behind the mountains, as I have stood on the margin of the Lake Lanberis, exhibiting the rich glow of Claude Lorraine; I would have scarcely bartered my admiration for the honours of an imperial court.

We judge of every object by comparison. Boerhaave desired his pupils to observe the majesty of the ridge of hills, which skirt the coast of Holland, and he called them mountains! In that country, however, " a mountain zephyr never blew !" The inhabitants of the vale of Usk regard Ven-y-Voel a mountain! Others esteem Snowdon a mountain! While the traveller, who has climbed the Chimborazo, regards Snowdon, Ben Nevis, Mount Blanc, and Teneriffe, merely as eminences! I have conversed with those, who have ascended St. Barthelemi and Canigou in France; with others, who have visited the Olmajolas and Syltoppen in Sweden; Mount Vesuvius; Mount Etna; and Mounts St. Bernard, Montanvert, Velan, and other eminences, in the neighbourhood of Mount Blanc. With others I have conversed, who have imbibed the air of Olympus and the Caucasus; Mount Atlas, and Mount Teneriffe; and with those, who told me, they had climbed Mount Sinai in the empire of

Japan. All these gentlemen have alluded to the transforming energy, which has governed them, while standing on those exalted eminences. But what are Olympus, Taurus, or the Caucasus, or any of the other celebrated mountains, when placed in competition with the Cordilleras 1? One of which towers to an altitude of 21,280 feet above the level of the sea! That is, as high as if Cader Idris were placed upon the top of Snowdon, those two on the top of Vesuvius, and all of them on the summit of Mount Etna! And yet,-such is the grandeur and immensity of Nature,-what is Chimborazo itself to some of the mountains in the Moon? And still less to those upon the planet Venus; one of which is calculated, by Schroetor, to be 22,000 toises higher than Chimborazo !

No man ought to presume to question the existence of a Deity! But if his mind has taken that feeble turn, let him mount the summit of a high mountain; let him read Locke and Newton; let him study the heavens through a telescope, and a grain of sand through a microscope. Till he has done all these, he has not qualified himself. He may as well presume to read Hebrew, without knowing the Hebrew alphabet. The ignorance of faith may be excused; but the ignorance of presumption is not to be endured. Emotions of religion are always predominant in elevated regions. Mr. Adams, when employed as minister plenipotentiary from the States of America to the court of Berlin, visited the mountains, that separate Silesia from Bohemia. Upon the Schneegniten he beheld

When Humboldt and Bonpland stood upon the slope of Chimborazo, the highest spot, at that time, ever trod by man, the air was so little dense, and the cold so excessive, that blood oozed from their gums, lips, and eyes.

Primitive Mountains;-Secondary Mountains. 149

the pits, where snow remains, unmelted, for the greater part of the year. Upon the Risenkoppe, the highest pinnacle in Germany, he beheld all Silesia, all Saxony and Bohemia, stretched like a map before him. "Here," says he," my first thought was turned to the Supreme Creator, who gave existence to the immensity of objects, expanded before my view. The transition from this idea to that of my own relation, as an immortal soul, with the Author of Nature, was natural and immediate; from this to the recollection of my country, my parents, and my friends."

XIII.

Primitive mountains1 are composed of granite, jasper, serpentine, porphyry, sand-stone, trap, strata or large blocks of limestone, fluoro and gypsum, &c. No organic remains are found in them. Secondary mountains rest upon primitive ones; and sometimes even cover them. They are composed of limestone, swine-stone, marlite, chalk, and gypsum; also of substances composing primitive mountains, as indurated clay and lithomarza, jasper, porphyry, trap, silicious limestone, &c. The most beau

' Parkinson's Organic Remains of a former World.

• Primitive rocks, in general, form the highest and most rugged portions of the earth's surface, and extend in the form of chains of mountain groups throughout the whole earth. These mountain tops are generally highest in the middle, and lowest towards the sides and extremities; and the mountain rocks, of which they are composed, are so arranged, that in general the middle and highest portions of the group are composed of older rocks than the lateral and lower portions. As far as we know at present, granite is the oldest and first formed of all the primitive rocks.

The next rock in point of antiquity, or that which rests immediately upon