43 - Theory os the Earth. Part IL

In M. de Sauffure’s Journey to the Alps,we have now seen a description of the shapethat had been given to things, by those opera-tions in which strata had been consolidated andelevated above the sea ; nothing but disorderand confusion seems to have presided in thosecauses, by which this mass of continent hadbeen exposed to the sight of men ; -and na-ture, it would appear, had nothing in viewbesides the induration, the consolidation, andthe elevation of that mass into the snowy re-gions of the atmosphere. From the descrip-tions now given, we fee the operation of thewaters upon the surface of the earth ; weperceive a regular system of mountains andvalleys, of rivulets and rivers, of fertile hillsand plains, of all that is valuable to the lifeof man, and that which is still more valuableto man than life, viz. the knowledge's orderin the works of nature, and the perception ofbeauty in the objects that surround him.

Let us now turn our view to distant re-gions, and fee the effect of causes which, be-ing general, must be every where perceived-