"To this salutary conformation of the earth we may add another
great convenience of the hills, and that is affording commodious
places for habitation, serving (as an eminent author wordeth it)
as screens to keep off the cold and nipping blasts of the
northern and easterly winds, and reflecting the benign and
cherishing sunbeams and so rendering our habitations both more
comfortable and more cheerly in winter.
"Lastly, it is to the hills that the fountains owe their rise and
the rivers their conveyance, and consequently those vast masses
and lofty piles are not, as they are charged such rude and
useless excrescences of our ill-formed globe; but the admirable
tools of nature, contrived and ordered by the infinite Creator,
to do one of its most useful works. For, was the surface of the
earth even and level, and the middle parts of its islands and
continents not mountainous and high as now it is, it is most
certain there could be no descent for the rivers, no conveyance
for the waters; but, instead of gliding along those gentle
declivities which the higher lands now afford them quite down to
the sea, they would stagnate and perhaps stink, and also drown
large tracts of land.
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