. To talk as some people do, that necessity, which destroys the very idea of intelligent and designing activity — or chance, which is an utter absurdity — or the sea, according to Telliamed, generated and formed this genus of marble, and so wonderfully distinguished it from all the other marmora; by making it into pentagon, hexagon, and septagon columns, and rendering the points of the columns convex and concave, and so amazingly joining them together, that the prominent angles of one pillar fall exactly into the hollow left beween two others, and the plain sides exactly answer to one another, as before observed, while all of them stand up perpendicular, contrary to the quality of all other marbles, and some lie in beds of strata — To talk I say of the sea, a chance, a necessity, doing this, or any thing of so wonderful a kind, is to produce schemes founded in ignorance, and eversive of true knowledge,

instead of giving a rational, intelligible account of the formation of the world, its order and appearances. In this wonderful production, a due attention perceives infinite art and power. Did we want that variety of things which employ the consideration of rational men, and force the tongues of thinking men to acknowledge creating power, this marble alone would be sufficient to demonstrate equal power directed by infinite wisdom.

Another extraordinary thing I saw in a valley not far from that where the Basalts stands. It is a boisterous burning spring. It rises with great noise and vibration, and gushes out with a force sufficient to turn many mills. The water is clear and cold, but to the taste unpleasant, being something like a bad egg. I judged from the nature of its motion, that the water would take fire, and having lit my torch, soon put it in a flame. The fire was fierce, and the water ran down the vale in a blaze. It was a river of fire for a considerable way, till it sunk under ground among some rocks, and thereby disappeared. After it had burnt some time, I took some boughs from a tree, and tying them together, beat the surface of the well for a few minutes, and the burning ceased. The water was not hot, as one might expect, but cold as the coldest spring could be. There are a great number of such springs in

the world, but this is the largest I have read of, or seen. It differs from that of Broseley in Shropshire, within six miles of Bridge-north, in this respect, that Broseley well will not
