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The objects. which cover the surface of mountains, are wood,
rocks, broken ground, heath, and mosses of various hues.
Ovid has very ingeniously given us the furniture of a
mountain in the transformation of Atlas.
----- Jam barba, comaeque
In sylvas abeunt; juga sunt humerique, manusque:
Quod caput ante fuit, summo est in monte cacumen:
Ossa lapis sunt. -----
His hair and beard become trees, and other vegetable
substance; his bones, rocks; and his head, and shoulders,
summits, and promontories.- But to describe minutely the
parts of a distant object (for we are
considering a mountain in this light) would be to invert the
rules of perspective, by making that distinct, which
should be obscure. I shall consider therefore all
that variety, which covers the surface of distant mountains,
as blended together in one mass; and made the stratum of
those tints, which we often find playing upon them.
These tints, which are the most beautiful ornaments of the
mountains, are of all colours; but the most prevalent are
yellow, and purple. We can hardly consider blue as a
mountain-tint. It is the mere colour of the intervening
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