FIRST WEEK THURSDAY.

MOUNTAINS.

FEW objects in Nature have a sublimer aspect than a chain of lofty mountains before they have recovered from the effects of wintry storms. Disrobed of their summer verdure, and lifting their bare summits in the chill air, or clad in a mantle of drifted snow, they seem to be the chosen haunts of desolation, the wild abode of darkness and storm. Crowned with no ancient forests, and unadorned with human dwellings, unfurrowed by the plough, incapable of cultivation, and but scantily clothed with a poor and stunted herbage, these vast eminences might, at first sight, appear barren and almost useless features in the general landscape,—not without their majesty and grandeur, indeed, in the day of storm or of sunshine, yet unprofitably encroaching upon the beauty and fertility of the plain.

But experience and research have unfolded to us the great advantages of mountains. Were it only because they are the sources of springs and rivers, we have ample reason to feel grateful for their existence. Their vast masses attract the clouds, and receive, in the form of rain, hail, or snow, the vapours with which the atmosphere is charged, even when the plains below are parched with summer drought; and hence the irregular and mountainous surface of the earth is veined over with a multitude of rills, and brooks, and rivers, whose waters, by a wonderful species of circulation, flow to the place whence they came,—that mighty and ever-heaving heart, the ocean. Were the earth a dead level, or even slightly varied with hillocks or gentle ascents, the moisture that fell would be gathered into turbid and sluggish streams, or stagnant lakes, and the whole surface of the ground, more than saturated, would become a vast

VOL. II.

B

marsh, sending forth noxious exhalations, pregnant with disease and death. All animal and vegetable life would languish; cultivation could scarcely exist; and, instead of a scene of rich and varied beauty, we should only behold a cheerless mixture of land and water. All the advantages attributed to rivers, might, with greater propriety, be ascribed to the mountains that produce and nourish them. Let us take one example of a mighty and fertilizing river, the Nile. Whence flow those famous waters, that, after a long and mysterious course, scatter golden harvests over the vale of Egypt? They descend from the Abyssinian and Nubian mountains, fed by their melted snows, and by the abundant tropical rains. Their remotest springs may be yet undiscovered, but these also are doubtless formed in the bosom of the Ethiopic hills. Mountains exercise a considerable, and, upon the whole, a salutary influence upon climate. Independently of the effect of the streams and rivers which they originate and send forth, to promote at once the fertility and salubrity of the champaign country, these elevated ranges, by intercepting the clouds, or by changing the courses of currents of wind, so as to cause them to mingle, generally occasion that deposition of moisture, which, in its different forms, is called mist or rain, and which is so necessary to water the earth and make it fruitful. We are screened from cold northerly blasts and from parching winds, by mountains, the bulwarks Nature has reared to shield her valleys and plains. In countries near the poles, their presence affords a protection from the cold ; and in the tropical regions they mitigate the solar heat, or afford a shelter from its influence. They form one of the many great arrangements made to equalize the temperature of the earth's various climates. In their southern slopes we find, on the grandest scale, bright, sunny exposures, on which, even in the higher latitudes, flourish the grape, the olive, and other delicious fruits. On mountains, also, we frequently find all the climates of the earth, varying

according to the elevation, and the consequent rarity and coldness of the air. In the lofty tropical ranges, every clime, with its peculiar productions, is met with, between the burning plains at their bases, and their summits capped with eternal snow. Thus, the Alps, the Andes, and the Himmalayahs, present every variety of stern and luxuriant scenery, and, though rising in the regions of perpetual summer, bear on their summits the plants and flowers of the polar circles. The number of valuable simples found only on mountains, also recommend to our gratitude these vast terraces of Nature. In the extensive forests that frequently enrobe them, or on their bare rocks unshielded from the chilling air, grow the rarest and most useful vegetables, botanical curiosities, or gifted with medicinal virtue.

Mountains are likewise the almost sole repositories of minerals. In their cavernous bowels, are discovered the various metals that are so invaluable to man, and so necessary to the arts of civilization.* The grains of gold sometimes found in the sand of rivers, are but stray treasures, rolled down from their native hills. These great mineral storehouses are sometimes up-torn by subter

"Had the earth's surface presented only one unvaried mass of granite or lava, or had its nucleus been surrounded by concentric coverings of stratified rocks, like the coats of an onion, a single stratum only would have been accessible to its inhabitants; and the varied intermixtures of limestone, clay, and sandstone, which, under the actual disposition, are so advantageous to the fertility, beauty, and habitability of the globe, would have had no place.

"Again, the inestimably precious treasures of mineral salt and coal, and of metallic ores, confined, as these latter chiefly are, to the older series of formations, would, under the more simple arrangement of strata, have been wholly inaccessible, and we should have been destitute of all these essential elements of industry and civilization. Under the existing disposition, all the various combinations of strata, with their valuable contents, whether produced by the agency of fire, or by mechanical or chemical deposition beneath the water, have been raised above the sea, to form the mountains and the plains of the present earth; and have still further been laid open to our reach, by the exposure of each stratum, along the sides of valleys.

"With a view to human uses, the production of a soil fitted for agriculture, and the general dispersion of metals, more especially of that most important metal, iron, were almost essential conditions of the earth's habitability by civilized man."-Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. p. 98.

ranean fires, and burst forth into terrible volcanoes. But may not the volcano, destructive and awful as it frequently is, be but a safety-valve for the escape of those sulphurous and nitrous fires generated beneath the shell of the earth; and which, if they found not vent through the chimneys and furnaces of mountain-peaks, might so accumulate in quantity and force, as to tear up and consume entire kingdoms. The innumerable particles of sulphur and nitre, evolved from volcanic fires, are scattered by the winds over the whole atmosphere, and fall upon the earth, where they contribute greatly to the sustenance of plants and animals.

Need I speak of the scenic grandeur of mountains, of the variety, the sublimity, the lofty beauty they throw over the earth's surface, which, but for their presence, would be a dull and undiversified plain? The ocean is not always calm and smooth, but has its mighty billows, ascending to the clouds and rolling to the distant shore; so the land is not a continued and uniform level, but is crowned and beautified with mountains, that stretch over continents their longitudinous arms, and lift their hardy tenants into the higher regions of the air. No landscape is perfect without mountains at hand, or in perspective. They form the noblest and most enchanting attributes of scenery.

The moral effects of mountains are of a peculiar, and even national, interest. Mountains have, in all ages, been the nurseries of patriotism, the abodes of industry, frugality, patience, and every hardy virtue. The rugged mountaineer, buffeted, but fostered and strengthened, by the storm, and gaining a scanty subsistence as a hunter, or as a tiller of the bleak and rocky soil, is not only a striking and picturesque personage in the eye of the painter or the poet, but, when his country summons her children to battle, or when foreign invasion threatens his dwelling, his heart is bold, and his arm is strong in the cause of freedom and independence. Often, in the front of the fight, have mountaineers won pre-eminence

in warlike prowess; often, from their native precipices, have they hurled defiance and defeat on the invading foe. Mountain chains, possessed and guarded by their bold inhabitants, are the best barriers against external danger, and the securest asylum of persecuted freedom. And, frequently, in the history of the Church, have the afflicted followers of the Saviour found refuge in mountain tracts, where, in wild dens and caves of the earth, they worshipped the God of their fathers, concealed from the tyrant or the oppressor.

So numerous and important are the uses and advantages of mountains. They may impede our rapid progress over the plain, and throw great obstacles in the way of inland conveyance; but the longer we survey them, and consider their structure and functions, the more forcibly are we impressed with their peculiar beauty and utility. Here, again, are we called upon to admire the unfathomable wisdom and power of the Creator, whose contriving hand has so wonderfully adapted even the barren mountain to the physical condition of the earth, and the exigencies of man. The solid land, and the restless ocean, with all their variety of aspect and scenery, proclaim His goodness. His praise ascends from the smiling valley, and the naked precipice. All is replete with the wisdom and energy of Him who founded the earth, and "stretched out the heavens like a curtain," who weighed the "mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance." J. D.

FIRST WEEK-FRIDAY.

RAIN.

AMONG the various analogies of Nature, so curious and so diversified, may be ranked that of the circulation of fluid substances. The blood circulates in animals, the