112. Many more arguments, all leading to the same conclusion, may be deduced from the general facts, known in the natural history of mountains; and, if the Oreologist would trace back the progress of waste, till he come in sight of that original structure, of which the remains are still so vast, he perceives an immense mass of solid rock, naked and unshapely, as it first emerged from the deep, and incomparably greater than all that is now before him. The operation of rains and torrents, modified by the hardness and tenacity of the rock, has worked the whole into its present form; has hollowed out the vallies, and gradually detached the mountains from the general mass, cutting down their sides into steep precipices at one place, and smoothing them into gentle declivities at another. From this has resulted a transportation of materials, which, both for the quantity of the whole, and the magnitude of the individual fragments, must seem incredible to every one, who has not learned to calculate the effects of continued action, and to reflect, that length of time can convert accidental into steady causes. Hence fragments of rock, from the central chain, are found to have travelled into distant vallies, even where many inferior ridges intervene: hence the granite of Mont Blanc is seen in the plains of Lombardy, or on the sides of Jura; and the ruins of the Carpathian mountains lie scattered over the shores of the Baltic.[32] [Footnote 32: NOTE XVIII.] 113. Thus, with Dr Hutton, we shall be disposed to consider those great chains of mountains, which traverse the surface of the globe, as cut out of masses vastly greater, and more lofty than any thing that now remains. The present appearances afford no data for calculating the original magnitude of these masses, or the height to which they may have been elevated. The nearest estimate we can form is, where a chain or group of mountains, like those of Rosa in the Alps, is horizontally stratified, and where, of consequence, the undisturbed position of the mineral beds enables us to refer the whole of the present inequalities of the surface to the operation of waste or decay. These mountains, as they now stand, may not inaptly be compared to the pillars of earth which workmen leave behind them, to afford a measure of the whole quantity of earth which they have removed. As the pillars, (considering the mountains as such,) are in this case of less height than they originally were, so the measure furnished by them is but a limit, which the quantity sought must necessarily exceed.