1. Of the formation of the earth	9. Of fountains
2. Sand probably its general cover	10. Of the sea
3. An inundation of sand	11. Of rivers and islands
4. Of mountains	12. Of the bason of the sea
5. The benefit of mountains	13. Of the tides
6. The height of mountains	14. Of currents in the sea
7. Of water	15. Of subterraneous trees
8. Of ice	16. Origin of bogs

1.The earth, or terraqueous globe, is a congeries of many different bodies. It contains sand, clay, various sorts of earth, stones, salts of various kinds, sulphur, bitumen, metals, minerals, and other fossils almost innumerable. Upon the earth are the waters, an4 on or near its surface animals and vegetables of all kinds. Bpit how was this whole mass formed into mountains, valleys, seaS, rivers, and islands Des Cartes advances one hypothesis; Dr. Burnet another; Mr. Hutchinson a third; and each world-builder advances plausible reasons for his own hypothesis. But none of those reasons are demonstrative: higher than probability they cannot go.

That the earth is round, manifestly appears from the eclipses of the moon, in all which the shadow appears circular, which way soever it be projected. The natural cause of its roundness, is the great principle of attraction, which the Creator has stamped on all the matter of the universe, whereby all bodies, and all the parts of bodies, continually attract each other. By this means, as all the parts of bodies tend naturally to their centre, so they take globous figure, unless some other more prevalent cause interpose. Hence drops of quicksilver assume a Spherical form, the parts strongly attracting each other. Drops of water have the same form, when falling in the air, but are only half round, when they lie on a hard body, because their gravity overpowers their attraction. Yet the earth is not exactly round, but swells out towards the equator, and is flatter towards the poles, which is supposed to be occasioned by the diurnal rotation of the earth on its axis. By this means the greater diameter exceeds the less about 24 miles. What the earth loses of its sphericity by mountains and vales is nothing considerable the highest eminence being scarce equivalent to the smallest protuberance on the surface of an orange. The diameter of the earth is supposed to be 7967 miles.

In the terraqueous globe are, 1. The external part, from which vegetables grow and animals are nourished. 2. The middle part, which is possessed by fossils, and extends farther than human labour can penetrate. 3. The internal, which some suppose to be a great loadstone; some a large mass of fire; some a collection of. waters; and others a hollow space inhabited by animals, which have their sun, moon and all other conveniences, peculiar to themselves. But indeed of that we know nothing. The deepest cavities, natural or artificial, known to us, scarce penetrating a mile below the surface.

In the external part we meet with various strata, which were doubtless formed by the general deluge. The exterior parts of the earth were then dissolved, and mixed with the waters in one common mass. Afterward they sunk, nearly according to the laws of gravity, the heaviest first, and the lighter in their order. So were these strata formed, which, hardening by degrees, have continued ever since. It is probable, these lay more regularly at first, but have been much changed in process of time, and their order disturbed by earthquakes, volcanos and divers other causes.

The earth is nearer the sun at Christmas than at midsummer, as appears both from the sun’s apparent diameter, being greater in December than June, and from its motion, being then swifter. Hence it is that there are about eight days more in the summer half year, from March to September, than in the winter half year, from September to March.

That the earth moves round its own axis, not the sun and stars round the earth, may appear from this single consideration. All the planets revolve in more or less time, as their orbits are greater or less. If then they moved round the earth, they must revolve in unequal times, according to their orbits; not all in the same time, in twenty-four hours, as they seem to do. Therefore, they do not move round the earth; but the earth, as the rest; round its own axis.

That it moves also round the sun, appears thus: all bodies which turn round each other, must gravitate towards each other: consequently if the sun gravitates to the earth, so must the earth to the sun. Now it is demonstrable, that when two bodies’ gravitate to each other, without approaching each other in right lines, they both turn round their common centre of gravity. But the earth being no more than a point to the sun, the common centre of these two bodies, will be within the body of the sun itself, and not far from the centre of it. The earth therefore turns round a point which is in the sun; consequently round the sun. Indeed to suppose the earth at rest, destroys all the order and harmony of the universe, annuls its laws, and sets every part at variance, with the others. It renders the motions of the planets utterly inexplicable, which are otherwise plain and simple.

Nor is the motion of the earth, whatever is vulgarly supposed, contrary to any part of the scripture. No other ideas are to be affixed to the words of scripture, than such as occur to one who looks at the thing spoken of. By the sun’s rising therefore, when mentioned in scripture, we are to understand no more than the sun’s appearing again in the horizon, after he had been hid below it : and by his setting, his ceasing to appear. And when the sun and moon are said to stand still, it means only, that they did not change their situation in respect of the earth: that the sun still appeared just over Gibeon, and the moon over the valley of Aja Ion. If it be said, “ but David speaks of the sun running it. course,” we may answer over and above, the word here used does not mean the orb or body of the sun, but always his rays or beams.

2 It is probable sand was once the exterior cover of the whole earth. All our northern mountains are, more or less, covered. with it at this day. And the higher the mountain the coarser the sand. The rivers rising in the mountains, still daily bring it down in large quantities. And that it has been so in all ages, since the first rains fell on the earth, seems highly probable, in that the mouths of rivers and entrances of harbours are usually barred with it. And if you pierce deep into the low ground near rivers, you find this mountain sand in great quantities: it was the more fit to be the general cover of the earth, because Of its great hardness, and consequently durableness. Mountain sand above all other, not being made, as much sand is, by attrition, steadily keeps its original figure and magnitude.

All sands are either natural or factitious. Natural sands are those which have been in the same or nearly the same state from the creation, diffused through all parts of the earth. Sand viewed in a microscope, is no more than a parcel of little stones: doubtless therefore they must have begun to exist, and been formed by the same laws that stones were formed by. Now stones were formed first into hard and solid masses, in proportion. to the quantity of similar materials, and proper cement. Where there was a great quantity of lapideous particles, and few heterogeneous mixtures, there strata, rocks, and large stones were formed: But where the lapideous particles were scattered and disunited by the intervention of other bodies, there small rubble-stones, gravel, girts, and the smallest and most numerous of all stones, sands, coalesced’ into minute glebes. This probably was the process in every part of the earth, so that sand is one of the primeval bodies, concreted at the same time with stones, upon the highest mountains, as well as in the valleys: and at the bottom of the sea, as well as upon dry land.

Besides this natural sand, there is also a factitious one, which owes its origin to the fretting of river or sea-water. For water always in motion, preys upon the stones and grinds them by degrees into stony powder which we call sand: hence it is that the sand of a particular stone, cove or bay has generally the same colour, and in a microscope, the same structure, as the rocks and stones of the adjacent cliff, and the strata under the sea, upon which the waves are perpetually working, and driving into the sea what they dash off from those strata.

3. We have heard of large bodies of sand moving together in the deserts of Arabia. But has any thing of the kind been known in England There has, and that very lately. It is not a century, says Mr. Wright, since our sands, near Dewnham, in Suffolk, first broke prison. In a warren near Lakenheath, an impetuous south-west wind having broken the sand of some sand-hills, the sand blew upon the adjacent grounds, which being much of the same nature, the thin crust of barren earth was soon rotted and dissolved by this sand laying upon it, and thereby fitted to bear it company in its strange progress. At its first eruption the whole magazine of sand could not cover above eight or ten acres of land. But it increased into a thousand acres before the sand had travelled four miles. Above thirty rears since it reached the bounds of this town, where for ten or twelve years it did no considerable mischief: because its course was then down the hill, which sheltered it from the wind that ‘gave it motion. But the valley once past, it went above a mile, up hill, in two months time. It over run two hundred acres of good corn that same year. It is now got into the body of this little town, where it has buried several houses. And the remainder have been preserved at more expense than they were worth. At the other end of the town divers houses are buried, and our pastures and meadows destroyed. A branch of the river upon which we border, for three miles together. is more than half filled up with sand. And had not this interposed to stop its passage into Norfolk, doubtless a considerable part of that county, had e’re now been left a desolate trophy of this conquering enemy.

4. One of the most considerable parts of the earth is the mountains. There is a remarkable irregularity in their figure, and, so far as we can judge, an entire neglect of order in their situation. The far greater part of them are hollow, and contain beds of stone, metals or minerals. And doubtless such there were from the creation, although not so high, steep, or rugged.

For these vast masses are not, as some have supposed, mere incumbrances of the creation: rude and useless excrescences of the globe; but answer many excellent purposes. They are contrived and ordered by the wise Creator, for this grand use in particular, to dispense the most necessary provision of water, to all parts of the earth ; without which neither animals could live, plants grow, nor perhaps fossils receive any increase. For was the surface of the earth even and level, there could be no descent for the waters, but instead of gliding along those gentle declivities, quite down to the sea, they would drown large tracts of land, and then stagnate and putrefy.

Indeed without hills, as there could be no rivers, so neither could there be any springs, which we continually find in or near high grounds, very rarely on spacious plains. When we do find any there, it is generally at great and inconvenient depths. And even these are probably owing to hills, either near, or at some distance: as we may gather from the impetuous manner wherein these subterraneous waters break out, when wells are dug in the Lower Austria, or in several parts of Italy. And if there are some islands, which seem void of mountains, and nevertheless are well watered, in reality the whole mass of land is no other than one mountain, descending gently and imperceptibly down, from the midland parts to the sea.

5. The benefit of mountains in general is not only, that vapours driven against them are condensed, so as to be precipitated through the chinks of the rocks, but that afterwards in their bowels they are preserved till they form rivulets, and then rivers. Vapours would fall in rain or dew though there were no mountains, but then they would fall equally, over considerable places of the globe at once, and so would be sucked deep in the ground, or make an universal puddle; whereas, by means of mountains, they are perpetually pouring down in particular places, and treasuring up a constant supply to the rivers. Another considerable use of them is the determination of these rivers; for if there could have been rivers without mountains, yet they could only have run in a straight line, if they had run at all; whereas by these eminences, placed up and down, they make innumerable turnings and windings, whereby they enrich, fatten, and water the soil of several different countries in one course, and at last disembogue in several mouths into the sea. Lastly, most hills are the nests of metals or minerals. These by the efficacy of subterranean heat, converting the adjacent earths into their substance, grow as truly as animals or vegetables. I just mention their use for the’ production, shelter, and nourishment of some sorts of vegetables and animals, which could not grow or live so well any where else. But from the whole, we may see of what advantage these unsightly moles (as some thought them) are to the accommodations, and even necessities of life.

6. The height of Snowden-Hill, generally supposed to be the highest in Great Britain, is 1240 yards. But Skiddow-Hill, in Cumberland, is I 760 yards high from the level of the lake beneath. And Conagra which rises gradually from the head of the bay at St. Kilda, one of the western islands of Scotland, is 1800 yards high; so that this may justly be stiled the Teneriffe of Great Britain. The height of several mountains in France is as follows:

FEET.

Bugarach in Languedoc - - 3888

Le Puy de domme 4860

Le Courland 5088

Le Coote in Auvergne - 5106

Le Cantal 5904

Le Mont d’or 6180

Le Mont Ventoux in Avignon 6216

The height of the Pyrenean mountain is,

St. Barthelemi - - 7110

Le Montage des, Mausset - 7548

Le Conigoe - - - 8640

Probably these mountains may vie in height with most in the known world. Yet above all these is the Stella Piz Hail, a steep mountain in the Grisons, which is 9585 Paris feet above the level of the sea; a height which the wild goats themselves scarce venture to ascend.

But Mr. Martel informs us, that the highest point Of Mont-Blano is higher even than this: that it is 2076 toises above the level of the Rhone, which added to the height of this above the sea, makes 13,115 Paris feet, or above two English miles, and two-thirds of a mile. If so, this is the highest mountain in Europe, and perhaps in all the world: unless you except Mount Athos in Macedonia: which, according to the account of Riccioli, who measured it exactly, is 10,000 Italian paces high, carrying its top above the winds and clouds: a clear proof of which, is, that whatever is written there in ashes or light sand, is found there, just as plain as at first, after several months or years.

“But is not the celebrated Mount Atlas in Africa, the wonder of all ages, far higher than this “ One who saw it, and travelled all over it, is best abic to answer this question. He writes the other stony strata, through the whole length or bulk of the mountain, and from the variety of its colours, makes a very pleasing appearance. Of these veins, some consist of marble or alabaster, some of agate, white, red, or blue stone, which, especially towards the sea, where the rocks are bare, form many curious variegations. Hence likewise there remain on the surface many detached blocks and fragments, scattered not only in the valleys and creeks, but on the tops of the highest mountains. Many of these are of the bulk of a common house, and consequently too ponderous, to have been raised to such an immense height, by the hands or art of men.

But the largest mountains may have been formed in the following manner. The sea-waters doubtless remained some time on the earth: and during that time the surface of the earth was the bottom of the sea, where every thing passed in the same manner as. passes at the present bottom of the sea. Now the sea has always had a flux and reflux, and that most violent under the equator, where likewise the earth’s motion causes a greater centrifugal force than any where else. Suppose then the earth was at first quite round, yet its diurnal motion, with the flux and reflux of the sea, would have raised by degrees the parts near the equator, by amassing there shells, mud and earth. And as this is performed daily, the water would carry at each time a small quantity of matter, which afterwards sinks to the bottom, and forms those parallel strata, which are every where found.

Thus in fact, on many shores the flux brings a great number of things along with it, and leaves them there. So that while it insensibly covers some lands, it abandons others, after adding thereto shells, earth and sand which, gradually accumulating, make a part of the continent.

On a coast against which the sea beats violently, it carries a little soil away at each tide. Yea, even where it is. bordered with rocks, it wears them away by little and little. These particles the waters carry to a certain distance, where they sink in the form of a sediment, and form the first stratum, which will soon be covered by another, and so with more and more. Hence in time a mountain will be formed in the bottom of the sea, entirely like what we see on the land.

Such eminences lying in the same direction with the waves that produced them, form by degrees a chain of mountains. “But how come mountains, whose top is composed of rock, to have only earth or sand for their base, which may often be seen in the neighbouring plains, to a considerable distance “ We’ answer, the water first transported the sand that formed the first layer at the bottom of the sea. Afterward the more firm and weighty substances were attacked, and brought by the waters in an impalpable powder. And this powder of stone formed the rocks which cover these eminences.

These causes act with more force under the equator, as the winds are there more uniform, and the tides more violent: and. accordingly the greatest chain of mountains is near the equator. Those of. Africa and Peru are the highest we know, which after traversing whole continents, stretch to very considerable distances, under the waters of the ocean. The mountains of the north are not equal to these. Moreover the number of isles in the northern seas is inconsiderable, while there is a vast quantity under the torrid zone: and an island is no more than the top of a mountain.

It is then doubtless the general flux and refiux of the sea, which has produced the greatest mountains. But others we may ascribe to currents, winds, and other irregular agitation of the sea, which. must, by their various combinations, infinitely vary the direction of the tides. They are the smallest of all which owe their rise to earthquakes, or to accidental causes.

But how ‘shall we account for the formation of the Iron Mountain, near Taberg, in Sweden It is situated in a ‘mountainous part of the country, covered with sand, near forty leagues from the sea. It is an entire mass of rich iron ore, the perpendicular height whereof is above four hundred feet, and its circumference three English miles. Opposite to it is a valley, through which flows a small river. No ore is found beyond the foot of it, nor on the neighbouring plain, so that it appears as if the mountain had been artificially laid on the sand. For it has no roots like other mountains, nor does its substance penetrate the ground. It has all over, many perpendicular and horizontal fissures, filled with pure sand: in the inner parts whereof bones of stags and other animals are found.

No hypothesis hitherto advanced to account for the formation of mountains, will at all account for this. The bones found therein shew it was owing to some ruinous cause. But what that cause was, must in all probability ever remain a secret.

No less unaccountable are some of the mountains in Iceland, termed by the natives, Jokeler. From the tops of these continually flow large streams of a thick, sooty, stinking water. These occasion lakes which increase in bulk, and again diminish, and change their appearance almost every day. Hence paths are seen in the sand made by travellers that passed the day before. When followed, they lead to a large pond or lake, which obliges them to go two or three miles round, and then they come to the very path opposite to that which they were obliged to leave. But in a few das the lake is, as it were vanished, and the uninterrupted path appears again.

7. A body that yields easily to the touch, and whose parts making but little resistance against being divided, move among\ themselves with great facility, is usually termed a fluid. Liquids are a sort of fluid which assume the figure of the vessel they are contained in, and always keep their upper surface in a plain, ‘parrallel to the horizon. Such as water, oil, mercury, which are distinguished from their fluids, by the parallelism of their surface, in consequence of their weight, and the intestine motion of their parts all manner of ways.. That they have such a motion, plainly appears, from their dissolving hard bodies. Put a piece of copper into a glass of aqua fortis, and there is first an effervescence, then the copper diminishes, and at last disappears. And ‘what’ strong waters are with regard to metals, other liquids are to other substances. Each of them is a dissolvent, more or less, according to its component particles. Now it is plain that dissolution supposes motion, and is the effect of it. There is therefore in all liquors an intestine motion, from which this effect results.

Water is a transparent liquid, capable of heat and cold, and of being rarefied into vapour. But it is not capable of being condensed, by any method yet known. It is of itself without smell or taste, and liable to putrefaction. It is heavier by many degrees than air, and insinuates where air cannot enter. These properties do unquestionably depend on the figure and texture of its parts. But these, after our most curious researches, it is not possible to know with certainty. Dr. Boerhaave says, no one ever yet saw a drop of pure water. It is never pure from salts. For all water contains air, and all air contains salts.

The particles of water are generally allowed to be round. This figure Indeed is probably inferred from its fluidity. Allowing then the particles of it to be round, fluidity must be an essential property of all quantities and assemblages of it. For take any mass of round bodies, (bullets for instance, pebbles, or the like) they will not cohere or rest by one another without force, but will flow on every side, till they meet with such resistance from external bodies, or rather internal gravitation, as shall prevent farther motion.

The particles of water are unalterable, for passing into so many bodies, and through such alternate extremes of heat and cold, if they had not preserved their essential properties constantly, moisture since the beginning of the world, must have very sensibly diminished. But seeing no such deficiency appears, and that springs, rains, and rivers, are as abundant now as they anciently were, (as by the rising of the Nile for many ages, among oilier reasons may appear) we are to conclude, though waters may be transplanted, they can neither be transmuted nor destroyed ; and wherever removed they will make their appearance again when at liberty, in the same liquid state as they were before.

The particles of water are exceeding small: for they may be so divided from each other, that one square inch of common water shall, when rarefied, fill a space of 14000 square inches. And it is computed that at least 12000 particles of water may be held on the point of a needle. By this it appears, that what we call water is an assemblage of small transparent globules, which are composed again of an infinite number of smaller particles or atoms of this elementary liquor.

Water seems to be diffused every where, and mixed with all bodies. Fire itself is not without it. Place salt of Tartar near the hottest fire, and it will imbibe water, and thereby in a short time, considerably increase in weight. So a pewter vessel with ice in it, brought up from a cold vault into the hottest room, in a dry summer-day, is immediately covered with little drops of water, which is gathered from the air, and condensed by the coldness of the ice. .

Indeed the quantity of water which is afforded by the driest bodies is surprising. Oil of vitriol long exposed to a violent fire, to separate it from all its water, by only standing a few minutes in the air, will afford as much as at first. Hartshorn kept forty years, and turned as hard and as dry as any metal, so as to strike fire with a flint, yet distilled in a glass vessel, will yield an eighth part of its quantity in water. Bones dried five-and-twenty years, and almost as hard as iron, have by distillation yielded half their weight in water. Yea, the hardest stones, ground and distilled, always afford a portion thereof. All animals and vegetables grow out of water and salts, and by putrefaction return to the same.

The chief properties of water are, 1. It is next to fire, the most penetrative of all bodies. So that a vessel through which water cannot pass, will contain any thing. ‘Only some oils will pass through those wooded vessel, which contain water. Not that their particles are more penetrative: but those woods abound with rozin. This the oil dissolves, and then makes its way through the spaces left thereby. Water also by degrees makes its way through all wood, and is only retainable by glass and metals. It finds its way where air cannot, as through leather, which air cannot penetrate. Again, air may be retained in a bladder: but water oozes through. Yea, experiments shew, it will pass through pores ten times smaller than air will. By this very quality it is fitted to enter into the composition of all bodies, animal, vegetable and fossil; with this peculiar circumstance, that by a gentle heat it is separable from them again. By this, joined with its smoothness, it is fit to convey the nutritive matter of all bodies. Passing so readily, it never stops up the pores, but leaves room for the following supplies. And yet, 2. Water, which so easily separates from most bodies, firmly coheres with some: yea, binds them together in the most solid masses. So mixed with ashes, it gives the utmost firmness. The ashes, for instance, of an animal, wrought up with pure water into a paste, and baked with a strong fire, grows into a coppel, which bears the utmost heat of a refiner’s furnace. It is in truth, by the glutinous nature of water alone, that our houses stand. For take this out of wood, and it becomes ashes; out of tiles, and they become dust.

Indeed all the stability and firmness in the universe, are owing an part to water. Thus stone would be incoherent sand, did . not water bind it together. And thus of water and clay we make earthen vessels, of the utmost hardness and closeness. And these, though appearing perfectly, dry, yield, when distilled, an incredible quantity of water. The same holds of metals, parings or filings, which by. distillation, yield water plentifully. Yea, the hardest stones, sea-salt, nitre, vitriol, are hereby shewn to consist chiefly of water.

Hence we learn that the component particles of water are, I. Infinitely small, whence their penetrative power. 2. Exceeding smooth and slippery; hence their fluidity, and easy separation from other bodies. 3. Extremely solid. 4. Perfectly transparent. 5. Hard, rigid, and inflexible’: as appears from the absolute impossibility of compressing them.

Salts melted in water, do not fill the vessel in proportion to their bulk. It follows, that there are spaces between the particles of water, to admit those of the salt. Hence also we gather, that the watery particles are extremely solid and inflexible, since notwithstanding those spaces, no power can compress, or force them nearer each other. .

8. When the particles of nitre that float in the air, wedge the particles of. water together, they become ice. The air lodged in the pores of the water, is then greatly expanded. Hence the water is lighter than before: but at the same time it is less transparent: perhaps because the passage of light is hindered by the interposal of these nitrous particles.

It is observable, 1. That all liquids, except oil, dilate in freezing and grow lighter. Nay, even after they are thawed, they are considerably lighter than before: 2. That water will not freeze in vacuo: 3. That water which has been boiled does not readily freeze: 4. That water covered with oil of olives does not freeze readily; covered with nut oil, not at all: 5. That nut oil, oil of turpentine and spirits of wine will not freeze at all: 6. That frozen water is covered with wrinkles, something like rays drawn from the centre to the circumference.

Though fluids are dilated near a tenth of their length, metals are shortened by frost. If vessels made ofmetals, however thick and strong, be filled with water, close stopped, and exposed to frost, the water will burst the vessels. A strong barrel of a gun, thus filled and stopped, will rend the whole length.

Dr. Plot observes, that rivers are always found to freeze first at their bottom. The same is observed by watermen in the Thames, who not only feel it at the bottom with their poles, some days before the surface is froze over, but see it rise up from the bottom, so as to dart up in pieces edgeways, half a foot, sometimes a foot, above the surface. In this posture it continues a little time, and then turning flat upon the water swims along the stream, till it meets with other pieces, which if the frost con tinues, all harden into one, till the river is froze over.

“ In a part of the Thames, where there was very little stream, I found the water, (says Dr. Hale) in a cold morning froze one fifth of an inch thick, under which I saw a bed of ice at the bottom. Breaking away some of the upper ice, I took Up’ some of the lower ice, which was about half an inch thick, It adhered close to the bottom, where the stones and sand were incorporated with it. When it freezes to a considerable thickness, it will raise up with it from the bottom the fishermen’s osier wheels, although they sunk down with stones or bricks tied to them.

Standing waters indeed freeze first at top, because they are coldest there: ‚whereas in a stream the upper and lower waters being continually blended together, are equally cold; and the upper water mean time having more motion, cannot freeze so soon. But here, where the motion of the water was so small, its surface was froze as well as the bottom, though not so thick; ‘whereas the main river, where its motion was greater, was not froze over, though cakes of ice were continually rising from the bottom.”

It has been commonly supposed, that fluids not only dilate, but evaporate by cold. And this has long passed for an incontestable truth. Yet it is altogether a mistake. From later experiments it undeniably appears, 1. That cold does not increase, but lessen the evaporation of water, if it be not exposed to the agitation of the air: 2. That the evaporation of water depends on an intestine motion, which it preserves as long as it is liquid, and that the air only contributes thereto, by continually transporting the particles detached from the surface, and thereby giving other particles room to disengage themselves: 3. That frozen water does not evaporate at all, if it be kept from the agitation of the aim’: 4. That the diminution observed in ice exposed to the open air, is not from any evaporation, but is the effect of a fine rasping by the wind, rubbing against it and carrying off its finer particles. And what is thus detached from ice is only a very fine dust, not more different from ice than the dust of free-stone, cut from the stone itself.

This dust carried by the wind produces intense cold. Nor is it always invisible. The air near Hudson’s Bay is often filled with particles of ice, fine as hairs, and sharp as needles: which if they strike against the hands or face, pierce the skin and occasion painful blisters.

The natural state of this globe seems to be in an intermediate degree between heat and cold. And this natural warmth of the earth is what secures many springs from being frozen: the frost in England seldom penetrating the earth, more than fourteen inches below the surface. Even in Sweden bubbling springs do not freeze at all, while the standing waters Ereeze three ells deep.

In the lakes of Sweden the ice often cracks, with a rupture nine or ten feet deep, and many leagues long, arid with a noise like cannon. Hereby the fishes get air, so that few of them are destroyed. In Moscow the earth is often cleft by the frost, a foot broad, and many yards long. In the mountains of Switzerland, there are vast masses of ice, which have lain there for many’ Centuries. At certain times these crack, and by those cracks one may guess at the immense thickness of them: some of, the Cracks being three or four hundred ells deep, though none of them have ever gone through the whole thickness of the ice.

We need’ not then be surprised, at the effects of severe frost on trees and other vegetables. How these are hurt in hard winters is easily understood, if we consider, that water when frozen, takes up more space than it did before: that all trees, especially those that shed their leaves, drink in a large quantity’ of moisture in summer, and that the Vessels of small twigs are larger in proportion than those of the trunk, and Consequently contain more moisture. It follows, that being surprised by a hard winter, before their juices are diminished, or changed into a glutinous nature, which does not so easily freeze; the vessels of the tree must necessarily burst. Consequently their juice must be extravasated, and so cause, as in animals, the death of the tree, by a kind of bleeding, which nothing can stop.

In the great frost in 1683, oaks, ashes and walnut-trees, were cleft in two, and frequently with a terrible noise, and not only their bodies, but their branches and roots also. In 1708, the frost was almost through all Europe, except Scotland and Ireland. All the orange-trees and olives in Italy, Provence and many other countries, perished, and all the walnut-trees in France, with an infinity of other’ trees. In England most of the bay-trees, hollies, rosemary, and even furze, perished. The sap also of wall-trees, stagnated in the branches, and produced disorders resembling chilblains. And the very buds of the finer trees were quite killed, and turned into a kind of mealy substance.

In 1728, toward the end of November, the wind blew exceeding cold, followed by so heavy a snow, as in one night broke off large arms of many evergreen trees. At this time also, there was a great number of large trees disbarked. Two West-India plane-trees, in particular, in the physic-garden at Chelsea, which were near forty feet high, and a fathom in circumference, were disbarked almost from the bottom to the top, on the west side of the trees. And it was observable, that whatever trees were disbarked, it was on the west or south-west side.

On the 14th of December, 1759, there was at Petersburg, the most excessive cold weather that ever was known, even to 205 degrees of De Lisle’s thermometer. At that time professor Braun repeated Fahrenheit’s experiments, in order to produce excessive cold by means of spirit of nitre combined with snow. He ‘saw’ with surprise, the quicksilver in the other thermometer descend even to 470 degrees: there the quicksilver remained fixed in the open air, for the space of a quarter of an hour, and did not begin to rise, till it -was carried into a warm room. He repeated the same experiment, first with the same, and then with another thermometer,. with the same success. But as Mr. Braun had not broken the glasses, he could only at that time form a conjecture. On the 17th he produced again cold equal to that of the 14th, and communicated his discovery at a meeting of the academy. On the 25th of December, in the morning, between nine and ten, De Lisle’s thermometer was at the 199th degree of cold, and Mr. Braun, as well as professor pinus, repeated this experiment. As soon as the former observed the quicksilver immoveable in the thermometer he broke the glass, and found the quicksilver frozen, but not entirely: Mr. pinus’ thermometer fell with extreme rapidity, almost to the sooth degree, and in breaking the glass from below, he found the quicksilver contained in it absolutely frozen. Both the gentlemen found, that the quicksilver, thus rendered solid, bore hammering and extension, like other metals; but being exposed to the open air, it recovered its former fluidity in a little time,

Mr. pinus went farther, to examine the quicksilver when it was made solid. He poured quicksilver into a glass tube, as thick as one’s finger, closed at the bottom, but open at top.

The quicksilver in this cylinder, which was about one inch and an half long, froze in three quarters of a minute; and became solid, perfectly resembling other metals. Mean time it continually contracted, its surface, which was at first pretty high, sunk very low, and the cylinder of frozen quicksilver sunk to the bottom of the fluid quicksilver. We know the contrary happens to water frozen and other fluids, which extend as they become solid, and their ice swims in the fluid matter, of which they were produced.

The bodies of ice in the northern seas, near Hudson's Bay are surprising: some of them are immersed a hundred fathoms or more, under the surface of tire ocean. They stand a fifth or sixth part above, and are three or four miles in circumference. These floating mountains owe their durable nature, to a cause not usually observed; that is, to their’ not being common ice, but the ice of sea water. If a phial of sea water be exposed to the air in frosty weather, till flakes of ice are formed therein, and ‘then set in a warm room, still the flakes will remain a long time undissolved, and if they are taken out, and exposed at a small distance to the fire, they will not run into water, as common ice does; but will by degrees evaporate, leaving only a little white salt. It is easy then to conceive, that the immense masses or tins ice found in the northern seas, will continue undissolved throughout the year, and at the return of the freezing season, grow larger and larger every year, by the freezing of more ice about them.

On the contrary, there are some waters, which will not freeze at all. The lake Ness, in Scotland, never freezes, be the winter ever so severe. Yea, while every thing round is frozen, its waters run smoking for six miles down the river into which they are discharged; and from this ‘smoke there rises a sort of fog, which overspreads the country, for several miles. Near the lake is a mountain, on the summit of which there is another lake, ‘which is always full, summer and winter. Due west from the river, there is another lake, two miles long and six broad. The middle of this is sometimes dry, and then plainly appears to have been once an inhabited country. There are many tumuli to be seen under water, one of which is accessible at low water. And in this urns have been found, which leave no room to doubt of their having been burial places.

There are likewise in Scotland other lakes, which freeze only at peculiar seasons. A little lake, in Statherick, never freezes over, be the frost ever so sharp, till February. But after the first part of this month, a slight frost will freeze it over in a night’s time. There are also two other remarkable lakes in the same country. The one Lough Monan, which is considerably large, observes the same rule, freezing over in February with a slight frost, but never before, be the season ever so rigorous. The other in Straglash has a contrary quality. It lies between two high hills, and is itself considerably above the level of the rest of the country. This freezes continually, having ice in the middle, even in the hottest summer’ months, while the sun, by reflection from the hills on each side, gives a very considerable heat. There are many other lakes in the neighbouring country which yet have no such property: so that this, and the property of the two other lakes, must be owing to some peculiar cause. The herbage about the sides of the last lake mentioned, has a kind of perpetual spring, which continues throughout the whole year, and is much esteemed by the country people, for feeding cattle in one month, more than the best land in the country will do in two. The lake is very deep, and the water does not manifest any particular quality.

9. Rain and snow which rise in vapours, both from the earth and waters, descending on hills, sink through the earth, till they meet with a bed of clay or stone. This retains the water and gathers it together, in a larger or smaller bason, till running over tire edge, it makes itself a way, and rises in a fountain. Hence issues a rivulet, many of which joining together, constitute a river, which continues its course, till it empties itself into the grand receptacle of water, the sea.

But it has been asked, “ is, there a sufficient quantity of vapours raised, in tire ordinary course of nature, to supply the demand of fountains and rivers” We answer, there is abundantly sufficient, from the surface of the sea alone, leaving the earth out of the account. For it has been shewn by clear experiments,. 1. That water salted to about the same degree as sea water, and exposed to heat equal to that of a summer’s day, did from a circular surface, eight inches in diameter, evaporate 6 ounces in 24 hours. If so, the thickness of a skin of water, evaporated in 2 hours, is the sad part of ‘an inch. But were it only a 60th, it would exhale the 10th of an inch in 2 hours. And on this principle every ten square inches of the surface of water, yield in vapour a square inch of water daily: each square foot, half a pint: every space f four feet square, a gallon: a mile square 6914 tons: a quantity abundantly sufficient to furnish both dews, rains, springs and rivers. So that we need not have recourse for supplies to the great abyss, whose surface, at high water, is surmounted several hundred feet, even by ordinary hills: and some thousands, by those vast mountains, from whence the largest rivers take their course.

Nevertheless we may allow a different rise to those springs, which ebb and flow with the sea: as likewise to those lakes whose water is salt, and which have sea-fish in them, although they have no communication with any sea, by any visible passage.

To explain this a little more at large. It is evident from experience, that a vapour is perpetually rising from the sea, rivers, and lakes. The winds carry this vapour through the atmosphere, in the form of a cloud or mist. When it meets with a colder air, or is stopt by mountains, it condenses, and falls to the earth. As it falls, it finds several chinks and crannies, through which it insinuates into the mountains, and lodges there, till increasing its store, it bursts out and takes the name of a fountain.

That this is really the case, will easily be allowed, by all who seriously consider, 1. That the vapours rising from the sea, are more than sufficient to supply both the surface of the earth, and the rivers with water. 2. That the mountains by their particular structure arrest the vapours that float in the atmosphere, and having collected them in their reservoirs, dismiss them again through their aides, either in perpetual or intermitting currents.

With regard to the first, it has been shewn, that every ten square inches of the surface of the sea, yields a square inch of water daily; every square mile 6914 tons: and pursuing the same proportion, every square degree, or 69 English miles, will yield 33 millions of tons. Now if we suppose the Mediterranean to be 40 degrees long, and 4 broad, at a medium, which is the least we can suppose, its surface will be 160 square degrees a from whence there will in summer evaporate daily 5280 millions of tons.’

The Mediterranean receives water, (to say nothing of small and Inconsiderable streams) from eight large rivers, the Iberus, the Rhine, the Po, the Danube, the Neister, the Borysthenes, the Tanais and the Nile. Now suppose each of these convey ten times as much water to the sea as the Thames. The Thames has been shewn to pour daily into the’ sea 203 millions of tons. Therefore all those rivers will produce 1827 millions of tons. But this is little more than one third of the quantity daily evaporated from the sea. How prodigious a quantity then remains for rains, and all other purposes!

Let us observe, secondly, how the mountains arrest, and collect these vapours, and then discharge them in springs.

The tops of mountains in general abound with inequalities, cavities, grottos and gaping cells. The floating vapours are stopt by these and by their pointed summits, and being condensed thereby, precipitate in water, easily penetrate through sand and lighter earth, and gather’ in basons of clay or stone, till they overflow and work a passage through the side of the mountain.

And yet we need not deny, that some springs may arise from the sea, or’ the great abyss: those in particular’; which at all times afford the same quantity of water. Some of these are found in almost every country. There is one near Upminster, in Essex, which in the greatest droughts, and when all the brooks are dried up, is little, if at all diminished. And in the wettest seasons it is not increased, unless violent rain falling into it, or running into it from the higher grounds, raise it for a day, or a few hours.

As to the manner how the water rises in such springs it may easily be represented, by putting a small heap of sand in a bason, and then pouring in water. Here the sand will represent the dry land, and the water the sea round about it. And as the water in the bason rises, to or near the top of the heap, just so do the waters of the sea rise, to the top of the land with which it communicates.

10. Some think the earth entirely covered the sea, till at the deluge the fountains of the great deep were broken up. And it is highly probable, there is still an abyss of waters within the earth, which has an uninterrupted communication with some part of the outward sea.

The immediate cause of the deluge, was probably that comet, which, as Mr. Whiston shews, passed toward the sun, just before the earth, on the first day of the deluge. The consequence of this must be, that when it came below the moon, it would raise a vast and strong tide, both in the waters that were on the antedeluvian earth, and also in the great abyss, which was under the crust of the earth, This tide must increase all the time that the comet was approaching toward the earth; and would be at its greatest height, when the comet was at the least distance from it. By the force of this internal tide, as well as by the attraction of the comet, the abyss, which was nearly round before, would then become oblong. And thus must immediately extend, and then burst the incumbent crust. And thus, according to the expression of Moses, the fountains of the treat deep were broken up.

Again. As tire same comet for a considerable time involved the earth in its atmosphere, it must have lost a vast quantity of its vapours, most of which would fail on the earth in violent rain. And thus the windows of heaven were opened. To remove this vast orb of water, he supposes a mighty wind to have risen, which dried up some, and forced the rest into the abyss again, through the clefts by which it came up. Only part of it stayed in the channel of the ocean, now first made to receive it, and in the lesser cavities, placed up and down on the surface of the globe.

The present distribution of the waters and the dry land, though it may seem rude and undesigned to a careless view, yet is admirably well adjusted to the use and conveniences of our world. In the first place, they are so distributed all the world over, that there is a just equipoise of the whole globe. The northern balances the Southern ocean; the Atlantic, the Pacific sea. The American dry land is a counterpoise to the European, Asiatic, and African. Jim the next place, the waters are so admirably ‘well placed about the globe, as to afford sufficient vapours. for clouds and rain, to temper the cold of the northern and southern air, to mitigate the heats of the torrid zone, and to supply fresh waters to fountains and rivers. Nay, so abundant is this great blessing, that we have more than a bare sufficiency, even a surplusage of this useful creature:, and yet so well ordered, as not to drown the earth, not to stagnate, putrefy or annoy its inhabitants: but to glide gently through convenient channels back again to its grand fountain, the sea: and many of the rivers through such large tracts of land, and to such prodigious distances, that it is a wonder the ‘fountain should be high enough, or the sea low enough for so long a conveyance. Witness the Danube and Wolga in Europe, the Nile and Niger in Africa, the Ganges and Euphrates in Asia, with the Amazon’s river and Rio de la Plata in America. No accidental currents or alterations of the waters themselves, no art or power of man, nothing less than the power of the Almighty, could ever have made or found, so long and commodious declivities and channels, for the passage of those waters.

11. The largest rivers of Asia, are, the Hoanho, in China, which is eight hundred and fifty leagues in length: the Jenisca of Tartary, about eight hundred leagues in length, from the lake Selinga to the Icy Sea: the Oby in Siberia, of near’ eight hundred leagues, running from the lake of Kila into the Northern seat the Amour in Eastern Tartary, whose course is about five hundred and seventy-five leagues, from its source to its entrance into the sea of Kamtkatska: the Kiamin China, five hundred and fifty leagues in length. The Ganges, one of the most noted rivers in the world, is about as long as the former: it is visited annually by several hundred thousand pilgrims, who pay their devotions to the river as to a God; for savage simplicity is always known to mistake the blessings of the Deity for the Deity himself. Next to this may be reckoned the celebrated river Euphrates: this rises from two sources northward of the city of Erzerum in Turcomania, and unites about three days journey below the same; from whence, after performing a course of five hundred leagues, it falls into the Gulf of Persia. The river Indus is extended, from its source to its discharge into the Arabian sea, four hundred leagues.

The largest rivers of Africa, are, the Senegal, which runs a course of eleven hundred leagues: and the celebrated river Nile, said to be nine hundred and seventy leagues from its source in Upper Ethiopia, to its opening into the Mediterranean sea.

This river, which the natives call Abava, that is, the father of rivers, rises first in Sacala, a province of the kingdom of Goiama, the most fruitful in all Abyssinia. In the eastern part of this province, on the declivity of a mountain, are two springs, each about two feet diameter, a stone’s cast distant from each other, which are the real source of this celebrated river. Its waters, after the first rise, run east about a musket-shot; then turning to the north, continue hid in the grass and weeds, for about a quarter of a league, and discover themselves for the first time among some rocks, a pleasing sight to those who have read the fabulous accounts of the ancients. It flows thence with a very small stream, but soon receives such an increase from various rivulets, that not above three day’s journey from its source, it is near a mile broad. After running nine or ten leagues farther, it enters the lake of Dambia. It crosses this at one end, with such rapidity, that the waters of the Nile may he distinguished through the whole passage, which is six leagues. Fifteen miles farther it rushes from the top of a high rock, and forms one of the most beautiful cascades in the world. The tall of this mighty stream from so vast a height, makes a considerable noise. Yet the neighbouring inhabitants are not deaf, but hear just as well as others. After this cataract, the Nile again collects its scattered stream, and flows on through various nations. Hence we may learn, that it is impossible to arrive at the source of the Nile, by tracing its channel from the mouth, there being so many cataracts in the way, which no vessel can pass.

In Abyssinia, from June to September, there is no clay without rain. Now the Nile receives in its Course all the brooks, rivers, and torrents, which flow from the Abyssinian mountains. These necessarily swell it above the banks, and fill the plain of Egypt with the inundation. This comes regularly in the month of July, that is, three weeks after the beginning of the rains in Ethiopia.

The water of the Nile is so delicious, that the Turks excite themselves to drink of it by eating salt. When the Egyptians leave their country, they speak of nothing but the pleasure they shall find at their return, in drinking the Nile water. All those who have tasted of it, allow, that they never met with the like in any other place. In truth, when one drinks of it the first time, it seems (says Maserier) to be some water prepared by art. It has something in it inexpressibly agreeable and pleasing to the taste. But to some, it appears to have too much sweetness. It is likewise salutary in the highest degree. Drink it in what quantities you will, it never incommodes you.

It seems peculiar to the water of the Thames, that in eight months’ time it acquires a spirituous quality, so as to burn like spirits of wine. Even when it stinks, it is not unwholesome men who were obliged to hold their noses, yet drank of it all the way to the East-Indies, and found no inconvenience. If you take out the bung from any cask that stinks, and let the air come in, it will be sweet in twenty-four hours. If you take a broomstick, and stir it well, it will be sweet in four or five hours. It casts a black lee to the bottom, which remixing with it, causes a third or fourth fermentation, after which it stinks no more. But though Thames water’ does not putrefy when it stinks, many other waters do, and are at that time very dangerous to drink.

The cataracts of the Nile are Probably less remarkable than that of Niagara, in Canada. T lie fall of this is about six leagues from Fort Niagara. The whole course of the river, for two leagues and a half below the great fall, is a series of smaller falls, one under another. The rocks of the great fall cross the river in almost a semicircle. Above the fall, in the middle of the river, and parallel with the sides of it, is an island above four hundred yards long. The lower end of this island is just at the perpendicular edge of the fall. On both sides of this island runs all the water that comes from the lakes of Canada, which indeed are rather seas than lakes, receiving many large rivers. When the water approaches the island, it runs with an amazing swiftness, and before it comes to the fall, is quite white, and in many places is thrown high into the air. Looking up the river from the fall, you see it is exceeding steep, resembling the side of a lull. When this vast body of water comes to the fall, it throws itself down perpendicularly. To see tlmis rush headlong down so prodigious a precipice, strikes the beholder in a manner not to be expressed.

It falls one hundred and thirty-seven feet. When the water’ is come down to the bottom, it leaps back to a great height in the air’: at a little distance it is white as snow, and boils like a cauldron. The noise of it in fair weather is heard gigyrrn leagues, yea, many times at Niagara. From the place where the water falls, abundance of vapour rises, resembling a very thick smoke. When it is calm, this rises high in the air. If you go into this vapour, in a few minutes you will be as wet as if you had been’ under water. In a calm morning, you will see it rising in the air, at the distance of many leagues. And a person unused to it, would be apt to think, that all the forests thereabouts were on lire.

But of all parts of the world, America supplies the largest rivers. The foremost of these is the great river of Amazons, which from its source in the lake of Lauricocha, to its discharge into the Western Ocean, performs a course of more than twelve hundred leagues. The breadth and depth of this river are answerable to its vast length; and where its width is more contracted, its depth is augmented in proportion. Next to this is that of St. Lawrence, in Canada, which after a course of nine hundred leagues, pours its collected waters into the Atlantic Ocean. The river Mississippi is more than seven hundred leagues in length. The river Plata is more than eight hundred. The river Oroonoko is seven hundred and fifty-five leagues in length, from its source to its discharge into the Atlantic Ocean,

Tire glory of other rivers increases in proportion to the length of their course. With the Rhine it is quite the reverse. For some hundred miles it pours on with a vast force. But at for’t Scheneken it divides, and one half of its waters takes the name of Wahall. The Yssel robs it of another part, a little above Arnheim. About twenty miles lower, at tire town of Duerstadt, it separates again. Here its principal branch takes a new name, and is called the Leck. Tire poor, little, stripped rivulet turns to the right, retaining still the old name of Rhine, and passes on to Utreclmt, where it is divided a fourth time. There the Vetcht breaks off, and the little thread of water, still called the Rhine, passes quietly to Worden. At length it comes to Leyden, and faintly finishes its course, by losing the small remainder of its waters in two or three canals.

The cause of the Rhine’s fate is well known. It was an earthquake which shook the Downs, in the ninth century, and filling the mouth of this river, forced it to return, and seek a new passage. The Leck was then scarce worth notice: but the water’s of the Rhine, which were driven back, swelled and deepened its channel: and the entrance of the sea has been ever since shut against the ancient course of the Rhine. It is supposed, that Zealand was then divided into the several islands we see now: and that those lands, woods and meadows, which were between Amsterdam and the Texel, were overflowed and covered with the waters still remaining, and known by the name of the Ztiyder Sea.

The lake Baiacel, in Siberia, is the greatest fresh water lake yet discovered. It extends in length above five hundred leagues, and is from twenty-five to eighty leagues in breadth. It is every where deep and navigable. The water is extremely clear, and abounds with fine fish. It receives abundance of rivers, but imone runs out of it, beside one, the Angara.

Salt lakes are cmmon in many parts of Siberia. Some contain a pure, white salt, fit for use, which in summer is crystalized by the heat of the ,sun, and forms a crust on the top of the lake. Springs of salt water sometimes rise in the midst of fresh water. One of these rises through a rock, in the bed of the river Angara. Thirty leagues above this, there is a hill thirty fathom high and two hundred and ten long, consisting entirely of rock salt. There are some lakes, which were fresh some years since, but are now salt: some have by degrees dried up; others appear, where formerly it was dry ground. And some of these, which at first had no fish, are now plentifully stocked therewith. The natives say, ducks and other birds that live upon fish, carry their eggs from one lake to another.

Three leagues east of Damascus is a lake ten or twelve leagues long, and five or six broad. This continually receives the waters of many rivers; yet never’ overflows its banks. Above thirty leagues from it there is a river, which is called the Dog river From under a large, vaulted rock, through an opening twelve or fifteen feet high, and twenty or twenty-five broad, issues continually a vast body of water, which gives rise to this river. And it is the common opinion, that this body of water, comes front the lake, through a subterraneous channel: which is the more probable, because the water of the lake and the river have the same qualities, and contain the very same sorts of fish, being cold, hard, and remarkably unwholesome.

Far different from this, is the water which rises out of the ground, throughout tire vast sandy deserts of the Mongal Tartars. Wherever you dig, there rises fresh water. Were it not for this, they must have been altogether uninhabited, either by man or beast. It seems these springs are produced by the rains and melted snow in the spring. For the water sinking in the sand is thereby prevented from exhaling by the heat of the summer sun, which must be very scorching in these deserts, wherein there is not the least shade to be found.

Besides the rivers which run upon the surface of the earth, there are many which hide themselves in its bowels, and run in subterraneous ducts, till they discharge themselves into the sea. A remarkable one of this kind has been discovered on the coast of Languedoc. There are also several of this sort on the coast of Croatia, opposite Venice.

Thus does the all-wise Creator shower down his treasures on the summits of tire mountains, which afterwards diffuse their refreshing streams over the plains below, give life and verdure to the trees and herbs, and beautify and enrich, the whole earth. At the same time we see the communication between those parts of nature, that before seemed to have no relation to each others Indeed all nature is linked together by one law of harmony, which sufficiently proves it to be the work of one wise and gracious Author.

How delightful an object is a’ large and majestic river! How graceful an appearance does it make in the works of nature! Consider its progress. At first it is but a vein of water, streaming from some hill, and even the scattered pebbles interrupt its course, till it unites with other kindred streams, and then rushes on the plain below. By its fall it hollows the ground, casting it up on each side: timen it pursues its course, eating a passage through every timing that opposes it. When it has received the supplies of marry rivulets, it is dignified with a name. Thus enlarged, it makes the tour of hills and mountains, and at once adorns and enriches the plains.

At the deluge, likewise, the main islands of the globe were formed. But it is certain others have been formed in later ages: partly by the casting up of vast heaps of clay, mud and sand, as that of Isongming in the Chinese province of Nanquin, partly by the violence of the sea, tearing off large provinces from the continent. So the ancients imagined Sicily to have been formed, and even Great Britain and Ireland. It is certain also, that others have emerged out of the sea, as Santorini formerly: and three other islands near it lately. The last of these rose in 1707, from the bottom of the sea, just after a violent earthquake. Indeed earthquakes, storms and inundations, have given rise to many islands: particularly in the East Indies, where they are very frequent, and which abounds in islands above any part of the world.

12. The entire bason of the sea, is of such immense extent, and covered in many places with such an unfathomable depth of water, that it cannot be traced in’ every part: but from some, we may form a probable judgment of the rest. The materials which compose the bottom of the sea, must in a degree influence the taste of its waters. Its saltiness it undoubtedly derives from mountains of salt which are found there: as bitterness from fossil, coal and other bituminous substances, which are there in plenty. There may likewise be many other substances, which the plummet does not discover. For the true bottom of the sea is often concealed by another accidental bottom, formed of various substances mingled together, and Covering it to a considerable depth.

The entire gulph of Lyons forms a bank above the surface of the water at the shore, of the exact figure of an arch. And ‘within this there is formed another such arch, making the bottom of the sea, for a great way from shore, of different depths in. various places, but generally between Sixty and seventy fathoms,

In general the bed of the main sea sinks, about as high as the mountains rise on the land. Near the land, in proportion to the height and steepness of the shores, the sea is deep below. And. on the contrary level shores denote shallow seas.

By the strata on the shores we may commonly judge of the bottom of the adjacent seas. For the veins of salt and bitumen doubtless run on in the same order as we see them at land. And the strata of stone that serve to support the hills and elevated places on shore, serve also, in the same continued chain, to support the waters of the sea. Probably the veins of metals and minerals likewise, which are found in the neighbouring earth, are in the same manner to be found in the bottom of the sea.

But the natural surface of the bottom of the sea, is greatly changed by subterranean’ currents. As we see these break out in rivers, on the surface of the earth, so we may be assured they break out at the bottom of the sea, and empty their fresh waters into the salt mass. In this case the continual rushing up of the water, makes a roundish cavity. And its running on, continues that cavity, till by degrees it is lost. Thus every river that arises in the bottom of the sea, when the water near the shore is clear, shews the traces of these currents, even to the naked eye, and the water taken up from them is more or less fresh.

Again. The coral fisheries give us occasion to observe, that there are many large caverns in the bottom of the sea, especially where it is rocky, as also in the sides of perpendicular rocks. These are often of great depth as well as extent, some with wide, others with narrow entrances. Nor is it any wonder, that we daily find vast cavities in the rocky mountains, so we should find them in the rocks under the sea. Nay, we may expect them in these the rather, as the rocks at land are in a state of rest, while those at sea are continually washed by the water, which insinuates every where, and by its continual agitation, enlarges every cavity it finds.

Upon the whole, it seems plain, that the bason of the sea was after the flood composed of the same substances, as the surface of the rest of the earth, namely, stone, clay, sand, and the like. It is true, the plummet in sounding usually brings up a matter composed of mud, dead weeds, broken shells, and various bodies cemented together by a sparry or tartareous substance. But these are only an artificial bottom, covering the natural one, such indeed as one might expect where numerous animals and vegetables are produced and decay, and where the quiet waters have time to deposite their stony matter, as our petrifying springs do.

There are places however where this adventitious crust is not found, but the natural bottom appears of the same nature with the strata in the body of the earth. But the fine and pure sand we sometimes find, seems not to be the original bottom, but to have been rather brought into the sea by the course of some subterraneous river, and to be lodged in one of those particular basons, which these rivers form to themselves.

In deep water, where the surface only is disturbed by storms and the lower part remains more quiet for ages, the bottom is covered with a great variety of things, sometimes with pure sand, sometimes a sort of sand made of shells beat to powder, sometimes with powdered corals, sometimes fragments of rocks. But beside these, which might well be expected, the plummet sometimes brings up substances, which are of the most beautiful colours: of as fine a scarlet, purple, or blue, as the finest paint could make them. Those of a bright yellow are very common; but the green or snow-white more rare. These coloured substances seem sometimes to make up. the whole bottom. But they are more frequently found on other things, as upon mud, corals, or larger pieces of shells, in the manner of tartarous crusts. And their colours are not merely superficial or transient; but many of them are so permanent, that they may be preserved in white wax, and when thus examined, appear equal to paints of the finest kind.

There is very little difference between the bottom of the Adriatic sea, and the surface of the neighbouring countries. There are at the bottom of the water, mountains, plains, valleys, and caverns, just as upon the land. The soil consists of different strata planted one upon another; and for the most part corresponds to those of the rock, islands, and neighbouring continents. They contain stones of different sorts, minerals, metals, various petrified bodies, pumice-stones, and lavas, formed by volcanoes. Istria, Dalmatia, Albania, and other adjacent countries, as well as the rocks, the island, and the bottom of the Adriatic sea, consist of a mass of white marble, of an uniform grain, and of almost an equal hardness. This vast bed of marble in many places under both the earth and the sea, is interrupted by several other kinds of marble, and covered by a great variety of bodies. The variety of these soils under the sea is remarkable: it is to this are owing the varieties of plants and animals found at the bottom of the sea. Some places are inhabited by a great number of different species of plants and animals, in others only some particular ‘species are found, and in others neither plants nor animals. These observations not only point out to us the resemblance between the surface of the earth, and the bottom of the sea, but likewise one cause of the varieties, which are observed in the distribution of the marine fossils found in the earth.

In that vast mass of marble, which is, common to the bottom of the Adriatic, and the neighbouring provinces toward the east, are a multitude of marine bodies petrified; some of which are so united to the stony substance, that they are scarce to be distinguished Likewise a crust is discovered under the waters in divers places, and for a great extent, which is a composition of crustaceous and testaceous be dies, and beds of polypi of different kinds, confusedly blended with earth, sand, and gravel.

These different bodies which enter into the composition of this crust, are at the depth of a foot or more entirely petrified and reduced into marble. At less than the depth of a foot they approach nearer to their natural state. And at the surface of this crust, they are either dead, though extremely well preserved, or still living.

This demonstrates that stones may be formed from things petrified, and actually are formed, in great quantities under the water. Crustaceous and testaceous bodies and polypi, are every where mingled in the utmost confusion, which shews a striking resemblance between the crust discovered under the sea, and the marine bodies petrified in many parts under the earth.

The more these crustaceous and testaceous bodies and beds of polypi multiply, the more their exuvia, and skeletons contribute to enlarge this crust. In several parts it forms very considerable banks, and of a very great thickness.

It follows that the bottom of the sea is rising constantly higher and higher. Divers other causes contribute to this; snow and rain, and waters that bring clown from the mountains, into the sea, a great quantity of earth and stones. The waves, beating against the continent arid islands, detach many masses which are spread upon the bottom of the sea. The rivers carry the mud with their waters into the sea, at the bottom of which that mud deposites itself.

From the rising of the bottom of the sea, that of the level of the water naturally follows. So at Venice, in Istria, in Dalmatia, the level of the waters is several feet higher than it was formerly. This elevation is observed only on the northern and eastern coasts of the Adriatic. The sea seems on the contrary, to abandon the western coast, that of Italy.

The eye can reach but a short way into the depth of army sea, and that only when the surface is glassy and serene. In many seas it perceives nothing but a bright sandy plain at bottom, extending for several hundred miles. But in others, particularly in the Red sea, it is very different the whole bottom of this extensive bed of water, is a forest of submarine plants, and corals formed by insects for their habitation: sometimes branching out ‘to a great extent; so that some have even supposed the sea to have taken its name from the colour of its plants below. How ever, these are not peculiar to this sea, as they are found in great quantities in the Persian gulf, along the coasts of Africa and those of Provence and Catalonja.

The bottom of many parts of the sea near America presents a very different appearance. This is covered with vegetables, which makes it look as green as a meadow; and beneath are seen thousands of turtles, and other sea animals feeding therein.

Ocean-shells are frequently found very near the surface of the earth, which proves that such places formerly have been the sea shore. Hence it is clear, that the cause which transported them thither, acted suddenly, which perfectly agrees which the account of the deluge given by Moses.

Nay, at Touraine, in France, more than a hundred miles from the sea, there is a plain of about nine leagues long, and as many broad, from whence the peasants of the country supply themselves with marie. if they dig deeper than twenty feet, the whole plain is composed of the same materials, which are shells of various kinds, without the smallest portion of earth between them. These shells are in their natural state: but they are found also petrified and almost in equal abundance in all the Alpine rocks, in the Pyrenees, in the hills of France, England and Flanders. Yea, in all quarters from whence marie is dug, if the rock be split perpendicularly down, petrified shells, and other marine substances will be plainly discerned. In several parts of Asia and Africa, travellers have observed these shells in great abundance. In the mountains of Castravan, they quarry out a white stone, every part of which contains petrified fishes in great numbers, and of surprising diversity, in such preservation, that their fins, scales and all the minutest distentions of their make can be perfectly discerned. From all these instances we may conclude that these fossils are very numerous. And the variety of their kinds is astonishing. Most of the sea-shells which are known, and many others to which we are entirely strangers, are to be seen either in their natural state, or in various degrees of petrifaction. But in the place of some we have mere spar, or stone exactly expressing all the lineaments of animals: for the shells dissolving by slow degrees, and the matter having exactly filled all the cavities within, this matter retains the same form which the shells were of.

The greatest depths of the sea ever yet sounded, have been found to be about 3000 fathoms. The ordinary depths are about 150. Though these shells are to be found in almost all the plainer parts of the surface of the earth, yet there are certain very large tracts, where such bodies are never found, viz. the mountains, which seem to be the remains of the original strata of the earth. It is true that there are many eminences, which have been taken for mountains, where sea-shells of every kind are found : but these are hillocks, compared with the large mountains, which may be traced in immense chains, without almost any discontinuity, from one continent to another; and from continents to neighbouring and opposite islands; insomuch that all these chains, not only of the old, but likewise of the new world, seem connected one with another. In the Alps, Apennine and Pyreneans, no shells, nor marine bodies of any kind, are to be found neither in the large Grampion mountains in Scotland.

The same is observed of all the large mountains of Africa, and of Asia, and in the huge chain of Cordilleres in Peru. This kind of mountains, which indeed alone deserve that name, are chiefly composed of vitrifiable matter; and if they are sometimes found to contain sea-shells, it is never to great depths, though such bodies are found in the adjacent vallies.

Potters earth is found plentifully in most low grounds and vallies, between mountainous tracts. By exposing common flint stones to the confined vapour of boiling water, a clay of the very same kind may be formed, and is no more than a decomposition of flints. Hence it appears that wherever this clay is to be found, there the earth has undergone some violence by fire; and that this has been effected by earthquakes, soon after the deluge, seems extremely probable. The deluge has given origin to many fossil substances, and combinations, which otherwise would not have happened. Chalk is no more than the ruins of sea-shells, and lime-stones consist of the same bodies cemented together by a stony juice.

13. At fixed times the water of the sea runs for near six hours from south to north, which is called the flood, at which time it rises gradually on our shores, and in the channels of the rivers. Then after standing at the same height for a quarter of an hour, it returns for near six hours from north to south, which we term the ebb; and after a quarter of an hour the water rises again. The change thereof is twice in twenty-four hours, but begins near fifty minutes later daily. And this is observed on all the shores of Europe, that are washed by the ocean: whereas the Baltic and Mediterranean sea, as well as the Caspian, have no tides. The nearer we approach the pole, the more impetuous the tides are. The cause of them was wholly concealed from the ancients; but it is now well known to every one. They depend entirely on the motion of the moon, with ‘which they exactly correspond: the flood beginning to rise just at the time when the moon is in the meridian.

There is something remarkable in the manner, wherein the tides rise, in several of our rivers. In the river Severn, in particular, near Newnham, and one hundred and sixty miles from Lundy, the head of the flood at spring-tides rises in height like wall, near nine feet high. Thus it pours on for many miles, usually oversetting any vessels that lie in its way. This head tide they call the Boar; it flows here only two, and ebbs ten hours.

But how shall we account for the ebbing and flowing of Lay-well, near Torbay This ebbs and flows many times in an hour. it usually performs its flux and reflux in a minute’s time. But it stands two or three minutes after the ebb: so that in the whole, it ebbs and flows about sixteen times in an hour.

14. Currents in the sea are either natural and general, arising from the daily rotation of the earth on its axis, or particular, or accidentally caused by the waters being driven against promontories, or into gulfs and straits, where, wanting room to spread, they are driven back, and so disturb the ordinary flux of the sea.

The currents are so violent near the line, where the motion of the earth is the greatest, that they carry vessels swiftly front Africa to America, but prevent their returning the same way. So that they run as far as the fortieth degree, to find a passage into Europe. in the Straits of Gibraltar, which are about twenty miles broad, the current almost always runs eastward. And so it usually does in St. George’s Channel. But the most violent sea is in the Straits of Magellan, which is owing to two contrary currents, which meet in those straits.

Sometimes there is an under current, contrary to that above. So it is in the Baltic Sound. One of the king’s frigates being there, they went with their pinnace in the mid-stream, and were carried violently by the current. Soon after they sunk a basket with a large cannon-bullet to a certain depth of water. This checked the motion of the boat. And ‘when they sunk it lower, the boat was driven ahead against the wind as well as the upper current. And the lower the basket was let down, the stronger the current was found. The upper current appeared by this experiment, not above four or five fathom deep.

And does not the following instance shew that there is an under current at the mouth of the Mediterranean sea In the year 1712, Mons l’Aigle, commander of a privateer, chasing a Dutch ship near Ceuta Point, came up with her in the straits between Tariffa and Tangier, and giving her one broadside sunk her. A few days after, this ship with her cargo of brandy and oil arose near Tangier, four leagues west of that place where she sunk, and directly against the strength of the current. Certainly then the deep water in the middle of the strait, sets outward to the grand ocean. And possibly great part of the water, which runs in at the straits, may run out again that way.

One of the most violent currents in the northern seas, runs between two of the Western Isles. The sea begins to boil, with the tide of flood, and increases gradually, till there are many whirlpools, which form themselves into a sort of pyrands, and immediately spout out as high as the mast of a little vessel. At the some time they make a loud report. These white waves run two leagues before they break. T he sea continues these motions, till it is more than half flood, and then decreases gradually, till it has ebbed half an hour. From that time it boils again, till it is within an hour of low water. This boiling of the sea is about a pistol-shot distant from the isle of Scarba. But the smallest boat may safely cross the gulf, at the last hour of the flood or of the ebb.

In like manner the collision of the opposite and oblique streams, near the and of the Orkney islands, excites a circular motion in the water; anLi when the swiftness of the tide is considerable, occasions, whirlpools or cavities in the sea, in the form of an inverted bell, wide at the mouth, and growing gradually narrower towards the bottom. Their width and depth are in proportion to the rapidity of the streams that cause them. Those in Pentland Firth, near the islands Storma and Swona, will, with a spring-tide, turn any vessel quite round. There have been instances of boats being swallowed up in them. The cavity is largest when it is first formed, and is carried along with the stream, diminishing gradually as it goes, until it quite disappears. The suction communicated to the water, does not extend farther than the cavity. When fishermen are aware of their approach to one of these wells, as they call them, and have time to throw an oar or any other bulky body into it, before they are too near, the spiral motion is interrupted, and the continuity of the water broke; which rushing in on all sides, fills up the cavity, and enables them to go over it safe.

The Maelstroom, is a whirlpool on the coast of Norway, and received this name ‘from the natives, which signifies the navel of the sea; since they suppose a great share of the water of the sea is sucked up and discharged by its vortex. A description of the internal parts is not to be expected, since none ever returned thence to bring information. The body of waters that form this ‘whirlpool, are extended in a circle about thirteen miles in circumference. In the midst of this stands a rock, against which the tide in its ebb is dashed with inconceivable fury. At this time it instantly swallows up all things that come within the sphere of its violence, trees, timber, and shipping. No skill in the mariners, nor strength in rowing, can work an escape: the sailor at the helm finds the ship first go in a current opposite to his intentions: his vessel’s motion, though slow in the beginning, becomes every moment more rapid; and it goes round in circles still narrower and narrower, till at last it is dashed against the rocks, and instantly disappears: nor is it seen again for six hours; till the tide turning, it is vomitted forth with the same violence with which it was drawn in. The noise of this vortex increases its terror, which, with the dashing of the waters, and the dreadful valley covered by their circulation, makes one of the most tremendous objects in nature.

May I be permitted to mention here, a cheap and easy way of making sea-water fresh: “I took, says a gentleman, a long glass body, and having filled it with sea-water, put therein sea-weed with its roots fresh and new gathered. Then I put on a head and a beak, and adapted a receiver thereto, without any lute or closing the Joints. From the plants distilled daily a small quantity of very sweet and potable water. And probably there may he found other plants near the sea, which would yield fresh water in large quantities.”

Sea-water, simply distilled, affords a water as pure and wholesome, as that obtained from the best springs.

From the improvements made by Dr. Hales, it appears. that three quarts of water might be procured in five minutes, that is fifty gallons in twelve hours, from a small cylindrical still of Mr. Durand’s, by setting some pewter plates edgewise in its head. And a still thirty-two inches diameter would give two hundred gallons in twelve hours, with only the expense of a. bushel and an half of coals.

When sea-water is boiled in a close covered vessel, the steam is converted into fresh water on the inside of the cover. And from a pot of thirteen inches diameter, by frequently removing the cover, and pouring off the water collected upon it, a quarter of a pint of fresh water is procured in an hour.

Perhaps a yet better way of making sea-water fresh, is the following. Take bees-wax, and mould it into the form of an empty hollow vessel; sink the vessel into the sea. The water, in some will work its way through the pores of the wax, and the quantity contained in the vessel will be fresh, and good for use. The same will happen by using a round earthen vessel, and stopping the aperture : for the water that penetrates it is percolated and pure.

But fresh water may be had in much greater plenty, and more expeditiously, by filling a vessel with river-sand or gravel, and pouring salt-water upon it. The vessel must be perforated at bottom, and by applying a linen strainer, the water, after undergoing a few filtrations, will lose all its brackish taste.

In order to keep fresh water sweet, take of fine, clear, white, pearl ashes, a quarter of a pound of avoirdupoize weight, and put into one hundred gallons of fresh water (observing this proportion to a greater or lesser quantity) and stop up your cask as usual till you have occasion to broach it for use. As an instance of its utility and success, Dr. Butler put an ounce of pearl ashes into a twenty-five gallon cask of Thames water, which he stopt up very close, and let it stand for upwards of a year and a half, opening it once in four months, and constantly found it in the same unaltered condition and perfectly sweet and good: afterwards he made use of it in boiling pease and burgoo, and found that it made the pease as soft, and answered for all purposes to which he applied it, as well as water fresh drawn out of the river.

To this short sketch of what is Observable in the terraqueous globe, I subjoin some of the beautiful reflections of Mr. Hervey.

“ What an admirable specimen have we here, of the Divine skill and goodness This globe is intended, not only for a habitation, but for a store-house of conveniences. And if we examine the several apartments of our great abode, we shall find reason to be charmed with “the displays both of nice economy and boundless profusion.

The surface of it, the ground, coarse as it may seem, is yet the laboratory where the most exquisite operations are performed. And though a multitude of generations have been accommodated by it, it still continues inexhaustible.

The unevenness of the ground, far from being a defect, heightens its beauty and augments. its usefulness. Here it is scooped into deep and sheltered vales,, almost constantly covered with verdure, which yields an easy couch and agreeable food to the various tribes of cattle. There it extends into a wide, open country, which annually bears a copious harvest: a harvest not only of the principal wheat, which is the staff of our life, but of the appointed barley, and various other grain, which are food for our animals.

The furrows vary their produce. They bring forth flax and hemp, which help us to some of the most necessary accommodations of life. These are wove into ample volumes of cloth, which, fixed to the mast, give wings to our ships. It is twisted into vast lengths of cordage, which give nerves to the crane, and sinews to the pulley, or else adhering to the anchor, secure the vessel even andst the driving tempest. It •covers our tables with a graceful elegance, and surrounds our bodies with a cherishing warmth.

Yonder arise the hills, like a grand amphitheatre! Some are clad with mantling vines, some crowned with towering cedars, some ragged with misshapen rocks, or yawning with subterraneous caves. And even those inaccessible crags, those gloomy cavities, are not only a refuge far wild goata, but sometimes for those of whom the world ia not worthy.

At a greater distance the mountains penetrate the clouds, with their’ aspiring brows. Their sides arrest and condense the vapours as they float along. Their caverned bowels collect the dripping treasures, and send them gradually abroad by trickling springs: and hence the waters increasing roll down, till they have swept through the most extensive climes, and regained their native seas.

The vine requires a strong reflection of the sunbeams and a large proportion of warmth. How ‘commodiously do the hills and mountains minister to this purpose! May we not call those vast declivities, the garden-walls of nature Then concentre the solar fire, and completely ripen the grape! 0 that any should turn so valuable a gift of God into an instrument of sin.

What is nature but a series of wonders! That such a variety of fruits should rise from the insipid, sordid earth! I take a walk. through my garden or orchard in December. There stand several logs of wood on the ground. They have neither sense nor motion; yet in a little time they are beautified with blossoms, they are covered with leaves, and at last loaded with fruit. I have wondered at the account of those prodigious engines, invented by Archimedes. But what are all the inventions of men, to those nice automata of nature .

The forest rears myriads of massy bodies, ‘which though neither gay with blossoms, nor rich with fruit, supply us with timber of various kinds. But who shall cultivate them The toil were endless. See therefore the ever-wise and gracious ordination of Providence! They have no need of the spade or the prunning knife. They want no help from man.

When sawed into beams they sustain the roofs of our houses. They make carriages to convey our heaviest loads. Their substance is so pliant, that they are easily formed into every kind of furniture: yet their texture so solid, that they compose the most important parts of the largest engines. At the same time, their pressure is so light, that they float upon the waters. Thus while they serve all the ends of architecture, and bestow numberless conveniences on the family, they constitute the very basis of navigation, and give being to commerce.

If we descend from the ground floor of our habitation into the subterraneous lodgments, we shall find there also the most exquisite contrivance, acting in concert with the most profuse goodness. Here are various minerals of sovereign efficacy: beds fraught with metals of the richest value: and mines, which yield a metal of a meaner aspect, but superior usefulness. Without the assistance of iron, what would become of all our mechanic skill Without this we could scarce either fix the mast, or drop the faithful anchor. We should scarce have any ornament for polite, or utensil for common life.

Here is an inexhaustible fund of combustible materials. These mollify the most stubborn bars. They melt even the most stubborn flint, and make it more ductile than the softest clay. By this means we are furnished with the most curious and serviceable manufacture in the world; which admits into our houses the cheering light, yet excludes the wind and rain: which gives new eves to decrepit age, and more enlarged views to philosophy; bringing near what is immensely remote, and making visible what is immensely small.

Here are quarries stocked with stones, which do not sparkle like gems, but are more eminently useful: These form houses for peace, and fortifications for war. These constitute the’ arches of the bridge, the arms of the mole or quay, which screen our ships from the most tempestuous seas. These are comparatively soft in the bowels of the earth, but harden when in the open air Was this remarkable peculiarity reversed, what difficulties would attend the labours of the mason His materials could not be extracted from their bbd, nor fashioned without infinite toil. And were his work compleated, it could not long withstand the fury of the elements.

Here are various assortments and beds of clay, which however contemptible in its appearance, is abundantly more beneficial than the rocks of diamond or the veins of gold: this is moulded into vessels of any shape and size: some so delicately fine as to suit the table of a princess; others so remarkably cheap that they minister to the convenience of the poorest peasant: all so perfectly neat, as to give no disgust even to the nicest palate

A multiplicity of other valuable stores is locked up in these ample vaults. But the key of all is given to industry, in order to produce each as necessity demands.

Which shall we most admire, the bounty or wisdom of our great Creator How admirable is his precaution in removing these cumbrous wares from the surface, and bestowing them under the ground in proper repositories! Were they scattered over the surface of the soil, it would be embarrassed with the enormous load. Our roads would be blocked up, and scarce any room left for the operations of husbandry. Were they on the other hand, buried at a great depth, it would cost us immense pains to procure them. Were they uniformly spread into a pavement for nature, universal barrenness must ensue: whereas at present we have a magazine of metallic, without lessening our vegetable treasures. Fossils of every kind enrich the bowels, verdure adorns the face of the earth.

Well then may even the inhabitants of Heaven lift up their voice and sing, “Great and marvellous are thy works, 0 Lord God Almighty !“ And is there not infinite reason for us to join the triumphant choir Since all these things are to us, not only a noble spectacle, bright with the display of. our Creators’s wisdom, but likewise an inestimable gift, rich with the emanations of his goodness “ The earth hath he set before the inhabitants of his glory: but he hath given it to the children of men.” Has he not then an undoubted right to make that tender demand, “ My son give me thine heart !“

The rocks which bound the sea, are here prodigiously high and strong; an everlasting barrier against both winds and waves. Not that the Omnipotent engineer has any need of these here. It is true, they intervene, and not only repress the rolling billows, but speak the amazing majesty of the Maker. But in other places the Creator shews, he is confined to no expedient. He bids a bank of despicable sand repel the most furious shocks of assaulting seas. And though the waves toss themselves they cannot prevail: though they roar, yet they cannot pass over.

Nay, is it not remarkable, that sand is a more effectual barrier against the sea than rock Accordingly the sea is continually gaining upon a rocky shore: but it is continually losing on a sandy shore, unless where it sets in with an eddy. Thus it has been gaining from age to age, upon the Isle of Portland and the Land’s End, in Cornwall, undermining, throwing down, and swallowing up one huge rock after another. Meantime the sandy shores both on our southern and western coasts, gain continually upon the sea.

Beneath the rocks frequently lies a smooth, level sand, almost as firm as a well compacted causeway: insomuch that the tread of a horse scarce impresses it, and the waters never penetrate it. Without this wise contrivance the searching waves would insinuate into the heart of the earth; and the earth itself would in some places be hollow as a honeycomb, in others bibulous as a sponge. But this closely cemented pavement is like claying the bottom of the universal canal: so that the returning tides only consolidate its substance, and prevent the sun from cleaving it with chinks.

Here the main rolls its surges from world to world. What a spectacle of magnificence and terror! How it fills the mind and amazes the imagination! It is the most august object under the whole Heaven. What are all the canals on earth, to this immense reservatory! What are the proudest palaces on earth, to yonder concave of the skies! What the most pompous illuminations, to this source of day! They are a spark, an atom, a drop. Nay, in every spark and atom and drop, that proceeds from the hand of the Almighty, there is the manifestation of a wisdom and a power absolutely incomprehensible.

Let us examine a single drop of water, only so much as will adhere to the point of a needle. In this speck an eminent philosopher computes no less than thirteen thousand globules. And if so many thousands exist in so small a speck, how many m the unmeasured extent of the ocean Who can count them As well may we grasp the wind in our fist, or mete out the universe with our span.

Nor are these regions without their proper inhabitants, clothed in exact conformity to the clime: not in swelling wool, or buoyant feathers, but with as much compactness and as little superfluity as possible. They are clad, or rather sheathed in scales, which adhere close and are laid in a kind of natural oil: than which apparel nothing can be more light, and at the same time nothing more solid. It hinders the fluid from penetrating their flesh: it prevents the cold from chilling their blood; and enables them to make their way through the waters, with the utmost facility. And they have each an air-bladder, a curious instrument, by which they rise to what height, or sink to what depth they please.

It is impossible to enumerate the scaly herds. Here are animals of monstrous shapes, and amazing qualities. The upper jaw of the sword-fish is lengthened into a strong and sharp sword, with which (though not above sixteen feet long) he scruples not to engage the whale himself. The sun-fish is one round mass of flesh; only it has two fins, which act the part of oars. The polypus, with its numerous feet and claws, seems fitted only to crawl. Yet an excrescence rising on the back enables it to steer a steady course in the waves. The shell of the nautilus forms a kind of boat, and he unfurls a membrane to the wind for a sail. He extends also two arms, with which, as with oars, he rows himself along. When he is disposed to (live, he strikes sail, and at once sinks to the bottom. ‘When the weather is calm he mounts again, and performs his voyage without either chart or compass.

Here are shoals upon shoals of every size and form. Some lodged in their shell, seem to have no higher employ, than imbibing nutriment, and are almost rooted to the rocks on which they lie: while others shoot along the yielding flood, and range the spacious regions of the deep. How various is their figure! The shells of some seem to be the rude production of chance, rather than of skill or design. Yet even in these we find the nicest dispositions. Uncouth as they are, they are exactly suited to the exigencies of their respective tenants. Some on the other hand are extremely neat. Their structure is all symmetry and elegance. No enamel is comparable to their polish. Not a room in all the palaces of Europe is so adorned as the bedchamber of the little fish that dwell in the mother of pearl. Where else is such a mixture of red, blue and green, so delightfully staining the most clear and glistering ground

But what I admire more than all their beauty, is the provision made for their safety. As they have no speed to escape, so they have no dexterity to elude their foe. So that were they naked, they must be an easy prey to every free-booter. To prevent this, what is only clothing to other animals, is to them a clothing, a house and a castle. They have a fortification which grows with them, and is a part of themselves. And by means of this they live secure andst millions of ravenous jaws.

Here dwell mackrel, herring, and various other kinds, which when lean wander up and down the ocean: but when fat they throng our creeks and bays, or haunt the running streams. Who bids these creatures leave our shores when they become unfit for service Who rallies and recalls the undisciplined vagrants, as soon as they are improved into desirable food Surely the fur low is signed, the summons issued, and the point of reunion settled, by a Providence ever indulgent to mankind, ever loading us with benefits.

These approach, while those of enormous size and appearance abandon our shores. The latter would fright the valuable fish from our coasts ; they are therefore kept in the abysses of the ocean: just as wild beasts, impelled by the same over-ruling power, hide themselves in the recesses of the forest.

One circumstance relating to the natives of the deep is very astonishing. As they are Continually obliged to devour one another for necessary subsistence, without extraordinary recruits, the whole watery race must soon be totally extinct. were they to bring forth no more at a birth than land animals, the increase would be far too small for the consumption. The weaker species would soon be destroyed by the stronger, and the stronger them selves must soon after perish. Therefore to supply millions of animals with their food, and yet not depopulate the watery realms, the issue produced by every breeder is almost incredible. They spawn not by scores, but by millions: a single female is pregnant with a nation. Mr. Lewenhoek counted in an ordinary cod 9,384,000 eggs. By this amazing expedient, constant reparation is made, proportionable to the immense havoc.

And as the sea abounds with animal inhabitants, so it does also with vegetable productions: some soft as wool, others hard as stone. Some rise like a leafless shrub, some are expanded in the form of a net: some grow with their heads downward, and seem rather hanging on, than springing from the juttings of the rocks. But as we know few particulars concerning these, I would only offer one remark in general. The herbs and trees on the dry land are fed by the juices that permeate the soil, and fluctuate in the air. For this purpose they are furnished with leaves to collect the one, and with roots to attract the other. Whereas the sea plants, having sufficient nourishment in the circumambient waters, have no need to detach roots into the ground, or forage the earth for subtenance. Instead, therefore, of penetrating, they are but just tacked to the bottom, and adhere to some solid substance only with such a degree of tenacity, as may secure them from being being tost to and fro by the agitation of the waves.

We see from this and numberless other instances, what diversity there is in the operations of the great Creator. Yet every alteration is an improvement, and each new pattern has a peculiar fitness of its own.

Considered in another view, the sea is that grand reservoir, which supplies the earth with its fertility: and the air and sun are the mighty engines, which work without intermission, to raise t he water from this inexhaustible cistern. The clouds as aquedusts convey the genial stores along the atmosphere, and distribute them in seasonable and regular proportions, through all the regions of the globe.

How hardly do we extract a drop of perfectly sweet water from the vast pit of brine Yet the sun draws off every moment millions of tons in vaporous exhalations, which being securely lodged in the bottles of Heaven, are sent abroad sweetened and refined, without the least blackish tincture, or bituminous sediment; sent abroad upon the wings of the wind, to distil in dews and rain, to ooze in fountains, to trickle along in rivulets, to roll from the sides of mountains, to flow in copious streams andst burning deserts and through populous kingdoms, in order to refresh and fertilize, to beautify and enrich every soil in every clime.

How amiable is the goodness, how amazing the power, of the world’s adorable Maker! How amiable his goodness, in distributing so largely what is so extensively beneficial ! That water, without which we can scarce perform any business, or enjoy any comfort, should stream by our houses, start up from the ground, drop down from the clouds; should come from the ends of the earth, to serve us, from the extremities of the ocean! How amazing his power! That this boundless mass of fluid salt, so intolerably nauseous to the taste, should be the original spring, which quenches the thirst both of man and every animal! Doubtless the power by which this is effected, can make “ all things work together for our good.”

Vast and various are the advantages which we receive from this liquid element. The waters glide on its spacious currents, which not only cheer the adjacent country, but by giving a brisk motion to the air, prevent the stagnation of the vapours. They pass by large cities, and quietly rid them of a thousand nuisances. But they are also fit for more honourable services. They enter the gardens of a prince, float in the canal, ascend in the Jet d’Eau, or fall in the grand cascade. In another kind they ply at our mills, toil incessantly at the wheel, and by working the largest engines, take upon them an unknown share of our fatigue, and save us both labour, time and expense.

So forcibly do they act when collected. And how do they insinuate when detached They penetrate the minutest tubes of a plant, and find a passage through all its meanders. With how much difficulty does the labourer push his way up the rounds of a ladder While these carry their load to a much greater height, and climb with the utmost ease. They convey nourishment from the lowest fibres that are plunged in the earth, to the topmost twigs that wave andst the clouds, Thus they furnish the whole vegetable world with necessary provision, by means of which “ the trees of the Lord are full of sap, even the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted.” And notwithstanding their vast elevation and prodigious diffusion, not a single branch is destitute of leaves, nor a single leaf of moisture.

Besides the salutary and useful circulation of the rivers, the sea has a motion no less advantageous. Daily for five or six hours, it flows toward the land, and for the same time, retires to its inmost caverns. How great is the power that protrudes to the shores such an inconceivable weight of waters, without any concurrence front the winds, often in direct opposition to them! Which bids the mighty element revolve with the most exact Punctuality! Did it advance with a lawless and unlimited swell, it might deluge whole continents. Was it irregular and uncertain in its approaches, navigation would be at a stand. But being constant in its stated period, and never exceeding its appointed bounds, it does no prejudice to the country, and serves all the ends of traffic.

Is the sailor returned from his voyage The flux is ready to convey his vessel to the very doors of the owner, without any hazard of striking on the rocks, of of being fastened in the sands. Has the merchant freighted his ship The reflux bears it away ‘with the utmost expedition and safety. Behold, 0 man, how highly thou art favoured by thy Maker! “He hath put all things in subjection under thy feet. All sheep and oxen, all the beasts of the field; the fouls of the air, and the fishes of the sea.” Yea, the surges of the sea are subservient to thee. Even these, wild and impetuous as they are, are ready to receive thy load, and like an indefatigable beast of burden, carry it to the place which thou choose St.

What prešerves this vast flood in perpetual purity It receives the refuse and filth of the whole world. Whatever would defile the land and pollute the air, is transmitted to the ocean. How then is this receptacle of every nuisance kept clean, kept from contracting a noisome and pestilential taint It is partly by its incessant motion, and partly by its saitness. By the one it is secured from any internal principle of corruption; by the other it works itself clear of any adventitious defilement.

Consider the sea in another capacity, and it connects the remotest realms of the universe, by facilitating the intercourse, between their respective inhabitants. The ancients indeed looked on the ocean, as an impassable gulph. But we find it just the reverse; not a bar of separation, but the great bond of union. For this purpose it is never exhausted, though it supplies the whole earth with rain: nor overflows, though all the rivers in the universe are perpetually augmenting its stores. By means of this we travel farther than birds of the strongest pinions fly. We cross the flaming line, visit the frozen pole, and wing our way even round the globe.

What a multitude of ships are continually passing and repassing this universal thorough-fare ! Whole harvests of corn, and vintages of wine, lodged in volatile store-houses, are wafted by the breath of Heaven, to the very ends of the earth: wafted, enormous and unwieldy as they are, almost as speedily as the roe bounds over the hills.

Astonishing, that an element SO unstable, should bear so immense a weight! That the thin air Should drive on with such speed those vast bodies, which the strength of a legion could scarce move! That the air and water should carry to the distance of many thousand miles, what the united force of men and machines could scarce drag a single yard! “Great and marvellous are thy works, 0 Lord God Almighty !"

How are the mariners conducted through this fluid common, than which nothing is more wide or more wild! Here is no tract, no posts of direction, nor any hut where the traveller may ask his way. Are they guided by a pillar of fire No, but by a mean, and otherwise worthless fossil. Till this surprising stone was discovered, ships crept timorously along the coasts. But this guides them, when nothing but skies are seen above, and nothing but seas below. This gives intelligence that shines clear in the thickest darkness, and remains steady in the most tempestuous agitations. This emboldens us to launch into the heart of the ocean, arid to range from pole to pole.

By this means are imported to our islands the choice productions of every nation under Heaven. Every tide conveys into our ports, the treasures of the remotest climes. And almost every private house in the kingdom, is accommodated from the four quarters of the globe. At the same time that the sea adorns the abodes of the rich, it employs the hands of the poor. What a multitude of people acquire a livelihood, by preparing commodities for exportation! And what a multitude by manufacturing the wares imported from abroad! Thus, though it is a false supposition, that the waters themselves are strained through subterranean passages into the inland countries, yet it is true, that their effects are transfused into every town, every hamlet and every cottage.”

I beg leave to insert here what could not properly come in under any of the preceding articles.

It is a curious remark, which Dr. Cheyne makes concerning fluids in general. “ I take notice, first f the fewness of the original fluids, in respect of the vast number of the compound ones. The primary ones hitherto known are only four: air, water, mercury, and light, three of which are seldom much compounded with others; so that it is water alone, that is the basis of all our mixtures. It is the parts of solid bodies floating in this fluid, that produce all our delightful and useful varieties of liquors: so frugal is nature in principles, and so fruitful in effects and compositions. Take notice, 2dly, Of the great difference between the specific gravities of our fluids, mercury being eight thousand times heavier than air. Now not to mention the many uses of this last fluid in artificer’s work,’ had air been as heavy as mercury it had been altogether useless in respiration: it had choaked us immediately. And had there not, been a fluid of the same weight with mercury, 1. e. a collection of exceeding small, heavy spherules, in the present circumstances of mankind, I do not know what a great part of the world would have done. For the wickedness of mankind, has brought many diseases to that degree. of malignity, that a thorough cure could scarce be made of them without this fluid. But by the gravity of this, a remedy is provided for all these maladies, which are more than two or three. But that which is most wonderful in these fluids is, 3dly, that universal property, the direction of their pressure upon the sides of the containing vessel. In all fluids pf whatsoever kind or nature this pressure is communicated in lines perpendicular to the sides of the containing vessel And indeed this property of fluids, which is so uniform, is the necessary consequence of the sphericity of their constituent particles.

Now, could any thing but the almighty power of. God, have rounded these infinite numbers of small particles Or could any thing but his divine wisdom have assigned them their true dimensions, their exact weights, and required solidities We shall allow him to continue in his infidelity, who can demonstrate by what laws of mechanism, all the particles of water were turned of the same diameter, solidity, and weight; and those of air, mercury, and light, turned of different diameters, solidities, and weights from one another; but all of the same diameters, solidities, and weights among themselves. And what a beautiful idea of this fluid do Sir Isaac Newton’s later discoveries present us with! Every ray is endowed with its own colour, and its different degree of refrangibility and reflexibility. One ray is violet, another indigo, a third blue, a fourth green, a fifth yellow, a sixth orange, and the last red. And these are the primary and original colours, from the mixture whereof all the intermediate ones proceed; and white from an equal mixture of the whole; black on the contrary, from the small quantity of any of them being reflected; or all of them in a great measure suffocated. So that it is not properly bodies that are coloured, but the light that falls upon them; and their colours arise from their aptitude, to reflect rays of one colour, and transmit all those of another. The prominent little parts, upon their surface, according to their different degree of density and thinness, are apt to reflect back upon our organ, rays of one colour, and of one degree of refrangibility and reflexibility, and to let others pass through their pores. And this one colour too is less or more intense, according as their prominent parts are of different densities. For the first degrees ol intenseness, in all the primary colours, seem to arise from the degrees of density and thinness; and the subsequent degrees, from the other different degrees of thickness, or thinness of the profninent little parts of the surfaces of bodies. Light, acts upon bodies by heating, dissolving, and putting their parts into a vibrating motion. Bodies act upon light, in drawing its parts to them, and that in lines perpendicular to their surfaces. And as there may be different degrees of attraction in bodies, which produce their different degrees of elasticity and cohesion, so there must be different degrees of attraction in mediums supposed, to account for their different powers, in bringing the refracted rays nearer to, or farther from, the perpendicular. For it is well known all mediums have not the same refractive virtue.. Now what a beautiful, uniform, and simple theory of light is here! This is so very like the frugal simplicity, and yet the manifold variety of nature, that one would be almost tempted to believe it true, were there no experiment to confirm it. We may observe one more instance of the wonderful wisdom of nature, in the propagation of light, viz. That a ray of light in passing from a luminous point, through two differently refracting mediums, to illuminate a given point, spends the least time (the refracting powers of the several mediums considered) possible; and consequently when a ray passes through one medium, from a luminous point to reflect upon a given point, it takes the shortest way possible. This the geometers have demonstrated. Now is not this an instance of counsel and design Is not this like the methods of wisdom, which will not spend more time on a thing than just what is necessary to do the business; which will not go about, but take the shortest course possible that will bring it to the place designed

The islands of Scilly have been so noted among the ancients, one might expect to find among the inhabitants some consciousness of their own antiquity, and of their appearance in history before the other parts of Britain were at all known. But there is nothing of this kind; the inhabitants are all new corners, not an old habitation worth notice, nor any remains of Phoenician, Grecian, or Roman arts, either in town, castle, port, temple, or sculpture.

We. are not to think, however, but Scilly was inhabited, and was frequently resorted to anciently, as the old historians relate. All the islands (several of which are now without inhabitants) by the remains of walls, foundations of many contiguous houses, and a great number of sepulchral burrows, shew, that they have been fully cultivated and inhabited.

That they were inhabited by Britons, is past all doubt, not only from their neighbourhood to England, but from the Druid monuments. Several rude stone pillars, circles of stone erect, rock basons: all monuments common in Cornwall and Wales, are equal evidences of the antiquity, religion, and original of the old inhabitants.

How came these ancient inhabitants then (it may be asked) to vanish, so as that the present have no pretensions of any affinity of any kind with them, either in blood, language, or customs How came they to disappear, and leave so few traces of plenty, arts, and no posterity behind them From two ases, the manifest encroachments of the sea, and as manifest a šubsidenc of some partš of the land.

The sea is the insatiable monster which devours islands, gorges itself with the earth, sand, clay and all the yielding parts, and leaves nothing where it can reach, but the skeleton, the bared rock. The continual advances which the sea makes upon the low lands, are plain to all people of observation. What we see happening every day may assure us of whae has happened in former times; and from the banks of sand and earth giving way to the sea, and the breaches becoming still more open, and irrecoverable, it appears, that repeated tempestshave occasioned a gradual dissolution of the solids for many ages.

Again, the flats which stretch from one island to the other, are plain evidences of a former union between many now distinct islands. The flats between some of them are quite dry at a spring-tide, and men easily pass dry-shod from one island to the other, over sand banks, where, upon the shifting the sands, walls and ruins are discovered frequently, upon which at full sea there are ten or twelve feet of water. All strong arguments that these islands were once one continued tract of land, though now as to their low lands over-run with the sea and sand. History confirms their former union. “The isles Cassiterides (says Strabo).are ten in number, close to one another; one of them is desert and unpeopled, the rest are inhabited.” But see how the sea has multiplied these islands! There are now reckoned one hundred and forty. Into so many fragments are they divided, and yet there are left six inhabited. But no circumstance can šhew the great alterations, which have happened in the number and extent of these islands, more than this, viz, that the islc of Scilly, from which the little cluster takes its name, is no more at present than a high rock of about a furlong over, whose cliffs hardly any thing but birds can mount, and whose barrenness could never suffer any thing but sea-birds to inhabit it. How then came all these islands to have their general name from such a small and useless plot

Doubtless Scilly, which is now a bare rock, .and separate from the lands of Guel and Brehar, by a narrow firth, was formerly joined to them by low necks of land, being the rocky promontory of one large island now broken into seven. This promontory,(at present called Scilly Island) lying westermost of all the highlands, was the first land of all the islands discerned by the traders from the Mediterranean and Spanish coasts, and, as soon as discovered was said to be Scilly, nothing being more usual with sailors, upon their first seeing land, than to call the part by the name of the whole. But when this considerable island called Scilly was broken to pieces, the, greatest portions became inhabited, and had first British names, as Brehar, Trescaw, Enmor; but afterwards were called according to the religion of the times, after the names of particular saints. The chief division was entitled St. Mary’s, the others dedicated to St. Nicholas, St. Martin, St. Theon, and so on; but this remarkable promontory being in no wise fit for habitation or devotion, was dedicated to no saint, but left to enjoy its ancient name; and notwithstanding the modern christian dedications, sailors went on in their old way. This high land is still called Scilly, and the islands in general are still denominated Scilly-isles..

It must have been a dispiriting circumstance to the old inhabitants, to see the ocean so continually eating away their low lands, in which they had their treasures of tin, their houses and ports: but this gradual decay was not the only misfortune which attended them. From the island of Sampson, one may see the foundations of stone fences running on in a straight line across the firth, towards Trescaw-isle, till they are hid in the sand; which sand, when it is full tide, has from ten to twelve feet water on it. Now we can not suppose that the foundation of these fences was laid as low as high water mark: for who could build fences upon so dangerous a level At a medium we may suppose them to have been laid six feet above the full tide.

Here then we have the foundations, which were six feet above the high-water mark, now ten feet under, which together make a difference as to the level of sixteen feet.

Here then was a great subsidence, which must have been followed by a sudden inundation, and this inundation is likely not only to have destroyed a great part of the inhabitants, but to have terrified others, who survived, into a total desertion of the shattered islands. By this means that considerable people, who were the aborigines, and carried on the tin-trade with the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans, were reduced to the last gasp. The few poor remains of this desolation, by their necessary attention to food and raiment, must soon have lost sight of their ancient prosperity, and the faint remembrance that was left of what the islands had been before, expired of itself in an age or two, through the indigence of the inhabitants.

That such an inundation has happened here, is still more plain, because these islands are no longer what they were anciently, fertile in tin: nor are there any remains of so many ancient workings as could maintain a trade so greedily coveted by the ancients. But what is become of those mines How shall this question be answered, but by confessing that the land, in which they were. is now sunk and buried under the sea.

I am not fond of introducing earthquakes; but where there has been evidently a great subsidence of the earth’s surface, can it be accounted for at all without a previous concussion of the earth And what nature declares in this case, tradition seems to confirm; there being a strong persuasion in the western parts of Cornwall, that formerly there existed a large country between the Land’s-End and Scilly, now laid many fathoms tinder water. Indeed there are no evidences of any ancient connexion of the Land’s-End and Scilly. Yet that the cause of that inundation, which destroyed much of these islands, might reach also to the Cornish shores, is extremely probable; there being several evidences of a like subsidence of the land in Mount’s-Bay. The principal anchoring place, called a lake, is now a haven or open harbour. The Mount, from its Cornish name, we must conclude to have stood formerly in a wood; but now at full tide, it is half a mile in the sea, and not a tree ‘near it; and in the sandy beach betwixt the Mount and Penzance, when the sands have been dispersed by violent high tides, there have been seen the trunks of several large trees in their natural position, the surface of their section worn smooth by the agitation of the water, sand, and gravel, as if cut with an axe, upon which at every full tide, there ‘must be twelve feet Water; so that the shores in Scilly, and the neighbouring shores of Cornwall are concurrent evidences, of such a subsidence, and the memory of the inundations, ‘which were the necessary consequences of it, is preserved in tradition: though like other traditions, in proportion to their age, obscured by fable.

That there has been such a subsidence of the lands, belonging to these islands, the present ruins of the islands testify. And this subsidence reached even to Mount’s-Bay, and laid under water a great part of the low lands then woody, there being now-ten feet water: so that the shores in Scilly and the shores in Cornwall, are equal proofs of such an inundation. When this inundation happened, we know not; but two pieces of history possibly lead us near the time. In the time of Strabo and Dio dorus Siculus, their commerce was in full vigour. “Abundance of tin was carried in carts,” says Diodorus Siculus. “ But ten islafids in all (says Strabo) and nine of those inhabited.” The. destruction therefore of Scilly must be placed after the time of these authors; that is, after the Augustan age.

Now Plutarch hints, that the islands round Britain were generally unpeopled in his time. If he includes Scilly among them, then this desolation must have happened between the reign of Trajan, and that of Augustus.

15. At the mouth of the river Ness, near Burgespu, in Flanders, at the depth of fifty feet, are found great quantities of trees lying as close to each other, as they do; in a wood; the trunks, the branches, and the leaves are in such perfect preservation,, that ‘the particular kind of each tree may be known. About five hundred years ago this very ground was known to have been covered with the sea; nor is there any history of its having been dry ground, which no doubt must have been the case. Thus we see a country flourishing in verdure, producing large forests, and trees of various kinds, overwhelmed by the sea. We see this element depositing its sediment to the height of fifty feet; and its waters must, therefore, have risen much higher. We see the same after it has thus overwhelmed and sunk the land so deep beneath its slime, capriciously retiring from the same coasts, and leaving it habitable once more. All this is wonderful, and perhaps instead of attempting to inquire after the cause, it will best become us to rest satisfied with admiration.

At the ‘city of Modena, in Italy, and about four miles round it, whenever they dig, when the workmen arrive at the depth of sixty-three feet, they come to a bed of chalk, which they bore with an auger five feet deep. They then withdraw from the pit, before the auger is removed, and upon its extraction, the waters burst up through the aperture with great violence. That which is most remarkable in the operation is the layers of earth, as we descend. At the depth of fourteen feet are found the ruins of an ancient city, paved streets, houses, floors, and different pieces of mosaic. Under this is found a solid earth, that one would imagine had never been removed; however, under it is found a soft, oozy earth, made up of vegetables: and at twenty-six feet deep, large trees entire, such as walnut-trees, with the walnuts still sticking on the stem, and their leaves and branches in exact preservation. At twenty-eight feet deep, a soft chalk is found mixed with a vast quantity of shells, and this bed is eleven feet thick. Under this, vegetables are found again with leaves and branches of trees as before; and thus alternately chalk and vegetable earth, to the depth of sixty-three feet. These are the layers whenever (lie workmen bore; while in many of them they also find pieces of charcoal, bones, and bits of iron. From this description it appears, that this country has been alternately overflowed and deserted by the sea, one age after another: nor were these overflowings and retirings of trifling depths, or of short continuance. When the sea burst in, it must have been a long time in overflowing the branches of the fallen forest with its sediment; and still longer informing a regular bed of shells, eleven feet thick over them. It must therefore have taken an age, at least, to make any one of these layers: and we may conclude, that it must have been many ages employed in the production of them all. The land also, upon being deserted, must have had time to grow compact, and to be drained of its waters before it could be disposed to vegetation.

Likewise in cutting a channel for the canal of Newry, in Ireland, a great multitude of fallen trees was discovered, lying near two miles in length, and in many places, six or eight feet deep.

Many of these are very large, and are tumbled down one over another, some lying in straight lines, and others in an oblique or transverse position. If trees thus found had been felled by the deluge, as undoubtedly others were they would all lie in one position. But this is not the case. We muse therefore seek for. other causes. And one cause seems to have been this. If water flowing either from springs or streams be stopt, it naturally softens and loosens the earth; and in a course of time, even. to the roots’ of trees, which are then subject to be overturned by any violent storm. This doubtless was the. case with most of those trees that are found in bogs with the roots adhering to them. Trees thus falling sink into the yielding ‘soil, and cause a farther stoppage in the course of the waters. Hence the loose earth is increas ed, by a yearly accession of scurf, moss, grass, and weeds. Add to this, that the higher lands being gradually dissolved by repeated rains, and washed down by floods, in a long course of years, cover the lower grounds with fresh layers of earth. This being so, it is not strange to find trees buried eight or ten feet under the earth.

Another cause may be this. Various colonies from time to time arriving in the then uncultivated country of Ireland, would naturally make room for tillage and pasture, by clearing the ground of its forests. This was certainly the case, where we find in bogs, trees partly burned, and others bearing the mark of the axe. But sometimes these colonies were driven by the natives. from their intended settlements, leaving the trees they had felled strewed over the plain, which stopping the waters, of course created bogs, that in process of the covered those trees to a considerable depth. Nay, as late as 1561, Tyrone and O'Donnel marching toward Kinsale, through Connaught, and laying the country waste, there is a great tract of ground, now a bog, which was then ploughed land.

That bogs in general grow but slowly may be gathered from a lump of coins of Edward the IV. (probably lost in a purse which rotted away) taken up in a bog in Yorkshire, eighteen feet deep. This was about 300 years before. So the bog had grown about a foot in eleven years; that is, somewhat above an inch in a year although some seem to grow much faster.

Much more ancient is the Great Level, or fenny ground, which contains about 300,000 acres, lying in the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, the isle of Ely, Huntingdon, Northampton, and Lincoln. This was once firm land. There have been found therein, stones, bricks, and other materials for building. In setting down a sluice, there was found, sixteen feet deep, a smith’s forge,. and all the tools thereunto belonging. William of Malmsbury, who lived 1200 years ago, says, that in his time “The trees which grew there, smooth and straight, were so tall that they seemed to touch the stars. A plain there is, as even as the sea,. which, with. the green grass, allures the eye: and there is not the least parcel of ground that lies waste and void. Here you see plantations of fruit trees; there a field set with vines, part creeping on the ground, part mounting on high poles.” But how cab it be reduced to so very different a state It seems the ocean broke in upon it, with such resistless violence, that the buildings throughout the whole space were overturned, and the trees torn up by the roots.. The amazing quantity of filth thrown up at the same time, covered the whole country, even to the verge of the highlands, seven, eight, and even ten feet deep. Hence, a few years since in digging a pool, there was found at the upper skirts of the level, the skele— ton of a large fish, near twenty feet long, lodged in filth above six feet below the surface of the ground. Yet how or when this inundation was, we are not able to determine. Whenever it was, it was probably occasioned by a violent earthquake.

16. A late writer gives the following account of the natural origin of hogs in Ireland. Some of these have vast quantities of timber under them: others have very little. But the surface of all is covered with a short, thick, and matted kind of heath. This as it grows and thickens at the top, vegetates at the bottom into a close texture, which being replete with moisture, throws out annual growths of this ramified heath, part of which dies every winter, and moulders at the bottom, where it forms another stratum, from which at spring comes a new crop of heath. And thus as these strata of mouldered heath are anually repeated, the roots increase, and at once extend higher, and are more consolidated at-the bottom. Hence the turf is always found of a closer texture, as we descend deeper in the bog.

The turf is itself ‘only a closely concreted combination of the roots of this heath, which universally grows on the surface of these bogs: not the produce of the trees which are at the bottom. Wherever these were thrown down, some earth would be washed down upon them from the adjacent grounds, the surface of which every where produces this heath. And this being now supplied with constant moisture, would throw out a more plentiful growth.

The same cause produces these bogs on the sides and even tops of mountains. But it is ever in wet grounds, or in flats on the side of hills, where the water settles, and supplies them with moisture.

There seems indeed to be a spungy quality in this heath, which prevents the moistures sinking away from it, by an attraction of the fluids, by an infinite number of capillary fibres, which are the very substance of it. At the bottom of these mountain-bogs, no trees are found. And very few in the largest bogs, unless on the skirts of them.

The turf then from top to bottom is entirely the produce of a vegetation from itself. And the reason why Ireland produces so many turf-bogs, is because it so abounds with the seeds of this heath, which is every where found where the land is uncultivated, and forms bogs, wherever it has proper moisture.

Our marie is found only in the bottom of low bogs, at the depth of seven, eight, or nine feet. For three feet is a spungy sort of earth, then gravel for about half a foot. For about three feet more is a spungy earth, mixed with timber, but so rotten, that it cuts like earth. Next this for the depth of three inches we find leaves, that are fair to the eye, but will not bear a touch. With these are sometimes mixed heaps of seed, which seem to be broom or furze seed: nay, in one place what seemed to be gooseberries and currants was found, and sea-weed in others. Under this was blue clay half a foot thick, thoroughly mixed with shells, as was also the marie, which lay next, three or four feet deep. They are shells of periwinkles: and among these are large horns and bones answerable thereto. But it is not only in bogs that subterraneous trees are found; nor in Ireland only, but in many parts of England. At Youle, about twelve miles from York, near the place where the Dun empties itself into the Humber, abundance of them have been dug up from time to time; all of which are a species of fir. In the Isle of Axholme, in Lincolnshire, not firs only, but abundance of oaks are found in the moor, whereof some are five yards in compass, with quantities of acorns near them. The first lie somewhat deeper than the oaks: one of them was thirty-six yards long. The adjoining levels (about 180,000 acres) were half of them yearly covered with water, till king Charles I. sold them to sir Cornelius Vermuyden, who drained them at the charge of above 400,0001. In the soil of all this land, through all Marshland, and on the skirts of all the Lincolnshire and Yorkshire wolds, are found millions of roots and bodies of trees, firs, oaks, birch, beech, yew, willow, and ash. The roots stand in their natural postures, as thick as ever they could grow. The bodies of most of the great trees lie all their length about a yard from their roots with their tops north-east. The smaller lie across in every direction, some under, some above them. Some of the oaks are thirty, some thirty-five yards long, yet wanting some yards at the small ‘ends. They are firm, lasting, and as black as ebony. Many of them have been burnt, some quite through, some on one side. Some have been found chopped and squared, some bored through; -some half cleft with great wooden wedges in them, and broken axe-heads, shaped not unlike the sacrificing axes. And all these were in such places, and at such depths, as could not have been opened, from the time the forest was destroyed until the ground. was drained. Near a great root in the parish of Hatfield, were found eight or nine Roman coins: and at the bottom of a new drain, were found trees squared and cut, rails, bars, a kind of battle-axe, and two or three coins of the emperor Vespasian. Nay, the ground at the bottom of the river was found to lie in ridge’ and furrow, manifesting that it had been ploughed. In an old drain, an oak was found forty yards long, four yards in diameter, at the great end, three yards and a foot in the middle, two yards at the small end; so that by a moderate computation, it seems to have been as long again. Yea, about fifty years ago, there was found, several feet deep, a man laying at his full length, with his head upon his arm as asleep. His skin, tanned as it were, by the moor-water, preserved his shape entire; but his flesh and most of his bones were consumed.

These stately trees formerly composed one of the most beautiful forests in the world. But how came it to be destroyed %Vhen the Romans pursued the Britons, they always fled into the woods. On this ‘the Roman generals ordered them to be cut down; this vast forest in particular. The trees falling across the riverš which ran through the country, soon dammed them up, turned the ground into a lake, and gave rise to the moors, that increased continually, by earthy matter washed down, the consumption of rotting branches and leaves, and the growth of water-moss, which wonderfully flourishes on rotten grounds. Hence it is, that so many Roman coins have been found at the bottom of these levels; that so many trees are found burnt or chopped; anti that the soil of the country in general is two, three or more yards higher than formerly.

Some similar alteration seems to have happened, many centuries ago, to that whole tract of land, near Newbury in Oxford-shire, out of which they dig their peat. There is a stratum of this several miles which lies many feet under the surface.

The best peat has very little, if any, earth in it, but is a com position of wood, branches, twigs, leaves, and roots of trees, with grass, straw, plants, and weeds. The colour is of a blackish brown: and if it be chewed between the teeth it is soft, and has no gritty matter in it. It is indeed of a different consistence in different places, some being softer and some harder: which may arise perhaps from the different sorts of trees it is composed of. Great numbers of trees are visible in the true peat, lying irregularly one upon another, and sometimes even cart loads of them have been taken out: but the nearer these trees lie to the surface, the less sound is the wood; and sometimes the small twigs which lie at the bottom are so firm as not to be easily cut through: these trees are generally oaks, alders, willows, and firs, besides some others not easily known. The small roots are generally perished, but yet have sufficient signs to shew that the trees were torn up by the roots, and were not cut down; there being no sign of the axe or saw, which, had they been felled, would have been plainly visible. A great many horns, heads, and bones of several kinds of deer, horns of the antilope, heads and tusks of boars, and heads of beavers, are also found in it, and some human bones. Before we dismiss this subject, it may not be improper to subjoin as strange an account as any age can parallel. June 7, 1697’, near Charleville in Ireland, a great rumbling was heard in the earth. Soon after, in the bog of Kapanihane, stretching north and south, some meadow and pasture land, that lay on the side of the bog, separated by a large ditch, and other land, on the further side adjoining it, began to move: and a little hill in the middle of the bog, sunk down.

This was at seven in the evening, the ground fluctuating in. its motion, like the waves of the sea. The pasture land then rose up, over ran the ground beneath, and moved upon its surface: rolling on with great violence, till it had covered the meadow sixteen feet deep. It drew after it the body of the bog, part of it lying on the place where the pasture land was before, leaving great breaches behind it, and currents of water, which cast up noisome vapours. There are still cracks and chasms through the whole surface of the bog, which contains forty acres.

But we have a later incident of the same kind. On Saturday, January 26, 1745, a part of Pilling-Moss, lying near Hescmb houses, was observed to rise a surprising height. After a short time it sunk as much below the level, and moved slowly toward the south side. In half an hour it covered twenty acres of land. The improved land, adjoining to that part of the bog, is a concave circle, containing near a hundred acres, which is well nigh filled up with bog and water. In some parts, jt is thought to be five yards deep.

An intense frost retards its progress for the present, but it is likely to spoil a great deal more land. That part of the Moss, which is sunk like the bed of the river, runs north and south. It is above a mile in length, and near half a mile in breadth.

Perhaps some morasses have been ever since the deluge. In some of these are found, many feet deep, whole forests of timber, and frequently of sucim sorts as have not grown in those countries for many ages.

But some morasses are only of late date. Lord Cromartie gives a remarkable account, of what he himself observed with regard to the generation of such a morass. In the parish of Lockburn, he saw, near the top of a very high hill,a plain about a mile over. It was then covered with a standing wood, but so old, that the trees had neither leaves nor bark left. When he came by the place fifteen years after, he observed all the trees were fallen. A few years after that, they were quite covered over with a soft, spungy earth, which formed a proper bog or morass. Many have been formed the same way.

The discovery of the bones of elephants at the bottom of some of our English bogs, seems a convincing proof, that the earth has undergone some very extraordinary alterations. For the remains of animals of quite different climates, which, in the present situation of the world, could never possibly come over hither, must imply, their, having been originally here, or that England was once joined to the continent. But, since we find these creatures only in the very hot countries, it is highly probable, they were not originally here, unless we suppose the temperature of our climate to have been greatly altered. And without such ‘a supposition, we cannot suppose they would have wandered hither, though all parts of the globe had been contiguous. But what changes have happened to our earth, no human wisdom can find out. Suppose only the axis thereof to have been shifted at any time but a few degrees, what convulsions in nature, what an universal change in the face of things ‘must have ensued! What inundations of water, bearing everything before them! ‘What breaches in the earth, what hurricanes and tempests, must have attended such an event! For the waters must have rolled along, till an equipoise was produced. And all parts of the world must acquire different degrees of heat and cold from what they had before. Seas would be formed, where continents had been; continents torn in pieces, or split into islands. Such would have been the fate of inanimate things. And as to living creatures, they must have been destroyed and buried in the ruins of the world, as perhaps these elephants were.