the contrary, those which are composed of calcinable stone are nearly equal in height, and are only interrupted by greater and more regular vallies, whose angles are correspondent; and they are crowned with rocks whose position is regular and level.
Whatever difference may appear at first between these two species of mountains, their forms proceed from the same cause, as we have already observed; only it may be remarked, that the calcinable stones have not undergone any alteration nor change since the formation of the horizontal strata; whereas those of vitrifiable sand have been changed and interrupted by the posterior production of rocks and angular blocks formed within this sand. These two kinds of mountains have cracks which are almost always perpendicular in those of calcinable stones; but those of granite and free-stone appear to be a little more irregular in their direction. It is in these cracks metal, minerals, crystals, sulphurs, and all matters of the second class are found, and it is below these cracks that the water collects to penetrate the earth, and form those veins of water which are every where found below the surface.
FOOTNOTES:
[279:A] See Phil. Trans. Abr. Vol. VI. part ii. p. 153.
ARTICLE X.
OF RIVERS.
We have before said that, generally speaking, the greatest mountains are in islands and in the projections in the sea. That in the old continent the greatest chains of mountains are directed from west to east, and that those which incline towards the north or south are only branches of these principal chains; we shall likewise find that the greatest rivers are directed as the greatest mountains, and that there are but few which follow the course of the branches of those mountains. To be assured of this, we have only to look on a common globe, and trace the old continent from Spain to China. We shall find, by beginning at Spain, that the Vigo, Douro, Tagos, and Guadiana run from east to west, and the Ebro from west to east, and that there is not one remarkable river whose course is directed from south to north, or from north to south, although Spain is entirely surrounded by the sea on the
west side, and almost so on the north. This observation on the directions of rivers in Spain not only proves that the mountains in this country are directed from west to east, but also that the southern lands, which border on the straits, are higher than the coasts of Portugal; and on the northern coast, that the mountains of Galicia, the Asturias, &c. are only a continuation of the Pyrennees, and that it is this elevation of the country, as well north as south, which does not permit the rivers to run into the sea that way.