56 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



their caufes in Nature, and their epochas, in the 

 unknown ages when their germs were created. It 

 is impoffible that they mould proceed from the 

 actual influence of the Sun, who ads on them in 

 a thoufand different afpects, Can they have been 

 thus directed in a conformity to fome general Cur- 

 rent of the Ocean, or to fome unknown attraction 

 of the Earth, toward the North or the South, to- 

 ward the Eaft or the Weft ? Thefe relations will 

 appear flrange, and perhaps frivolous, to our men 

 of Science ; but every thing in Nature is a feries 

 of concatenation. A flight obfervation here, in 

 many cafes, leads to important difcovery. A fmall 

 plate of iron turning toward the North, guides a 

 whole Navy through the deferts of the Ocean ; 

 and a reed of an unknown fpecies, thrown on the 

 coaft of the Azores, fuggefted to Chrîftophcr Co- 

 lumbus the exiflence of a weftern World. 



Whatever may be in this, certain it is, that 

 there exifts a great number of thofe particular 

 points of attraction, fcattered over the Earth, fuch 

 as the matrices which renovate the mines of me- 

 tals, by attracting to themfelves the metallic parts 

 difperfed in the elements. It is by means of at- 

 tractive matrices, that thofe mines are inexhauf- 

 tible, as has been remarked in many places, 

 among others, in the Ifle of Elba, fituated in the 

 Mediterranean. This little ifland is entirely a 



mine 



