236 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



that in a peach expofed to it's adion, the pulp ex- 

 ternally (hould be meltingly plump, and the nut 

 within extremely hard ; whereas the contrary takes 

 place in the fruit of the cocoa-tree, which is reple- 

 nifhed with milk inwardly, and clothed externally 

 with a (hell as hard as a ftone ? 



Neither has the Sun more influence on the me- 

 chanical conflrudion of animals : their interior 

 parts, which are mod conftantly moiftened with 

 humours, with blood and marrow, are frequently 

 the hardeft, fuch as the teeth and the bones ; and 

 the parts moft expofed to the adion of his heat 

 are often very foft, as hair, feathers, the flelh, and 

 the eyes. Once more, how comes it to pafs, that 

 there is fo little analogy between plants tender, 

 ligneous, liable to putrefadion, and the Earth 

 which produces them ; and between the corals 

 and the madrépores of ftone, which form banks fo 

 extenfive between the Tropics, and the fea-water 

 in which they are formed ? To all appearance, the 

 contrary ought to happen : the water ought to 

 have produced lofc plants, and the earth folid 

 plants. If thingsrexift thus, there mud, undoubt- 

 edly, be more than one good reafon for it ; I 

 think I have a glimpfe of a very tolerable one : 

 it is this, that if thefe analogies adually took place, 

 the two elements would in a fliort time become 

 uninhabitable ; they would foon be overwhelmed 



by 



