297. Saussure was so strongly impressed with the appearances of what he accounted regular stratification, such as water only can produce, and such as must have been in the beginning horizontal, that, placed as he now was, on one of the highest points of the earth's surface, he formed the bold conception, that the summit on which he was standing had been once buried under the surface, to the depth at least of half the diameter of the mountain, and horizontally distant from its present place by a line not less than the whole height of the mountain; the granite beds which compose that mountain, having been raised by some enormous power from their horizontal position, and turned as on an axis, till they were brought into the vertical plane. In this notion, which suits so well with the nature of mountains really composed of vertical strata, and which does credit to the extent of Saussure's views, it is wonderful that he did not see the overthrow of the geological system be had adopted, which is provided with no means whatsoever of explaining these great effects. Such, then, were the ideas suggested to Saussure, by viewing the mountains of the Alps from the highest of their summits. His great experience, his accurate knowledge of the objects before him, and the power he had acquired of dissipating those illusions, to which, in viewing mountainous tracts, the eye is peculiarly subject, all conspire to give great weight to his opinion. Yet, as this opinion is opposed by that which he himself had so long entertained, before it can be received with perfect confidence, it will require to be verified by new observations. It seems certain, that the beds of rock here described, differ from all ordinary strata, both horizontal and vertical, in the circumstance of their vast thickness, three of them being so large as to form the main body of a mountain. Their parallelism cannot easily be ascertained; and they have at best but a very slight resemblance to such beds as water is known to produce.