106 Consequences of the Deluge.

of the Hills , and coming to unite, form littleRivulets or Brooks. Many of these againmeeting tn one common Valley, and gainingthe plain ground, being groivn lest rapid , he*come a River and many of these being unt-ted in one common Channel,make such Streams,as the Rhine, the Rhosiie , and the Danube,which latter one would hardly think the Col-letlion of Water condensed out of Vapour , un-less we consider how vajl a Trait of Groundthat River drains , and that it is the sum ofall thos e Springs,which break out on the Southfide of the Carpathian Mountains , and on theNorth fide of the immense Ridge of the Alps,which is one continued Chain of Mountainsfrom Switzerland to the Black Sea. And itmay almost past for a Rule , that the magni-tude of a River , or the quantity of water itevacuates, is proportionable to the length andheight of the Ridges, from whence its Foun-tains arise. Now this Theory of Springs ismt a bare Hypothesis, but founded on Expe-rience, which it was my lack to gain in my &-bode at St. Helena ; where, in the night timeen the tops of the Hills , about Eight hundredyards above the Sea , there was so strange &condensation, or rather precipitation of theVapours, that it was a great impediment tomy Celestial Observations; for in the cleatSky the Dew would fall so fast , as to covet