In the largest continents, no less clearly than in the smallest island, there exists a gradual descent from the highest elevation to the circumjacent seas. In whatever part of the general tract that elevation may be placed, whether approaching to one of its extremities, as the Alps on the continent of Europe, or nearer to the centre, as in Asia the stupendous mountains of Tartary and Thibet; or stretching in a continuous chain along one of the boundaries, as the Andes range themselves throughout the length of South America; the gradual descent, be it more or less rapid, to the surrounding ocean is incontestable. The proof in every land is at once furnished by its rivers. Place before your eyes an extended map of the globe. Observe from the snowy piles of Switzerland the Rhone conveying its waters into the Mediterranean, the Po into the Adriatic, the Rhine into the German ocean, the Danube into the Euxine: Observe from the Tartarian ridge the Ganges and the Boorampooter tending to the Bay of Bengal, the Yellow river to the Eastern sea, the Lena and the Tunguska to the Arctic ocean. Observe from the Andes an infinity of streams precipitating themselves on the western

side into the Pacific ocean; and on the eastern, the enormous river of the Amazons directing its course across the whole breadth of the continent into the Atlantic. Observe universally, in every component district of each of these continents, the inferior rivers conducting their own tribute from the mountain to the hill, from the hill to the imperceptibly sloping plain either into the contiguous sea or into those mightier streams which hold a direct intercourse with the ocean. Observe in each subordinate part of each district, observe in every part of our own island, as the most familiar and obvious example, the same process, from the spring to the rill, from the rill to the brook, from the brook to the rivulet, from the rivulet to the river, from the river to the sea. Contemplate also the general face of the country, to a distance on each side of rivers in Great Britain, or in any other region. The accompanying appearances, displayed, as might reasonably be anticipated, under a large diversity of modifica tions, usually consist in ranges of high grounds, attending, at a greater or a less distance, the c of the river; and with fronts more or towards the river in prope

dator the softness of the materials of which they are constituted. These high grounds, worn, it may of the be, and whirled in various parts into recesses, ca

vities, and basons, by the eddies and circumvothese lutions of the waters acting of old on the softenred mass, indicate the banks of the channel which from the river filled for a season, when it was yet rolleiling with unnatural magnificence during the subightsidence of the Deluge whence it originated.with Occasionally, and far within these elevated ranges, fe are seen corresponding ranges, or parts of ranges, of inferior elevation, marking progressive diminutions of the primeval stream. Between these infnermost ranges, the land is expanded and smoothed into a vale or a plain; the effects of the levelling operation of water, when, having exhausted the extraordinary supplies by which it had been fed from the loftier parts of the country, and approximating toward stagnant state, it overspread the flatter tracts ke, and gradually deposited the soil witl t was charged. And final

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the Nile or the Maragnon, which the contributions of perennial springs and ordinary rains may now enable it permanently to fill.

The marks of a similar process, in miniature, but with every token of accordant analogy, are continually visible along the course of rivulets and brooks.

With the valley in which a river or a brook at present flows, collateral valleys of a smaller size, but without a stream, frequently unite themselves. Though originally scooped out by the water in the same manner as the larger valley into which they tend; they posses not any springs, or none sufficient to sustain a rill. They are the dry and vacant records of a stream that survived not the Deluge which gave it birth. But to the ear of the pupil of Natural Theology, the stream though dead yet speaketh.

If we inspect the high banks of a river after the subsidence of a flood, we see them marked horizontally by ranges of indentations or furrows, resembling the mouldings of a cornice, and denoting successive stages in the sinking of the stream. When the heights which bounded a mighty current formed by the retiring deluge

were composed of soft materials, as marl, or sand, or soil, or crumbling stone; the horizontal excavations successively produced on their sides by the action of the stream, near the level of its surface, would soon be obliterated by the mouldering influence of seasons. When the heights were composed of granite, or of other rocks equally hard, such impressions might not be effected; or might be engraved so slightly as long to have been effaced. But it is not unreasonable to expect, that occasionally the boundaries. might be of a texture so constituted as to be capable both of receiving the impression, and of retaining vestiges of them even to the present day: and that if the views which have been developed in the present chapter be just, examples of such vestiges will have occurred amidst the widely extended researches of scientific travellers. The expectation may be fully satisfied. On the naked and perpendicular rocks of Mount Saleve, Saussure remarked various ranges of horizontal furrows, broad and deep, bearing in their form, in their direction, and in the rounded curvature of their edges, the clearest proofs of