24 HISTORY OF THE [BOOK. i. 



ocean from east to west, has laid a vast extent of level 

 country under water. J 



But notwithstanding all that has been written on 

 this subject, very little seems to be known. The ad- 

 vocates of this system do not sufficiently consider, that 

 the sea could not have covered so great a portion of 

 land on one side of the globe, without leaving an im- 

 mense space as suddenly dry on the other. We have 

 no record in history of so mighty a revolution, nor in- 

 deed are many of the premises on which this hypothe- 

 sis is built, established in truth. 



Perhaps, instead of considering these islands as the 

 fragments of a desolated continent, we ought rather 

 to regard them as the rudiments of a new one. It is 

 extremely probable, that many of them, even now, 

 are but beginning to emerge from the bosom of the 

 deep. Mr. BufTon has shew r n, by incontrovertible 

 evidence, that the bottom of the sea bears an exact 

 resemblance to the land w T hich we inhabit; consisting, 

 like the earth, of hills and vallies, plains and hollows, 

 rocks, sands and soils of every consistence and spe- 

 cies. To the motion of the waves, and the sediments 

 which they have deposited, he imputes too, with great 

 probability, the regular positions of the various strata 

 or layers which compose the upper parts of the earth ; 

 and he shews that this arrangement cannot have been 

 the effect of a sudden revolution, but of causes slow, 

 gradual, and successive in their operations. To the 



I See I/ Abbe Raynal, L'Abbe Pluche, and others. 



