a part of the earth rising to a considerable height above the level of the surface thereof.

The origin of mountains is variously assigned by philosophers; some will have them coeval with the world, and created along with it; others, among whom is Dr Burnet, will have them to take their rise from the deluge, urging that the extreme irregularity and disorder visible in them, plainly shews they do not come immediately out of the hand of God, but are the wrecks of the old world, broken into the abyss. See Deluge.

Others again allege from history, that the roots of many hills being eaten away, the hills themselves have subsided and sunk into plains; whence they conclude, that where the corruption is natural, the generation is so too. It appears certain to many, that some mountains must have generated gradually, and have grown up in process of time, from the sea-shells, &c. found in them, which they suppose may be accounted for from a violent wind blowing the sand, &c. into huge heaps, which were made into mafs by the rain, &c. The origin of mountains, in the opinion of Mr Ray, seems to have been from explosions by means of subterraneous fires; and he thinks it very probable, that they all have vast hollows beneath them; and that this might have been the means used at the creation to make the dry land appear, he thinks no way dissonant to reason, since history proves that fires have raged in subterraneous caverns under the seas; and there is no natural impossibility in fire's subsiding in such caverns, even when the earth was all over covered with water, as at the first creation.