340 STUDIES OF NATURE, 



tremities of which they are always fituated. Î 

 had, in like manner, difcerned the utility of bays, 

 which are, on the contrary, removed from the 

 Currents of the Ocean, and hollowed into deep 

 retreats to (helter the difcharge of rivers, and to 

 ferve, by the tranquillity of their waters, as an: 

 afylum to the fiflies, which in all feas retire thither 

 in (hoals, to colleft the fpoils of vegetation, and 

 the alluvions of the Land, which are there dif- 

 gorged by the rivers. I had admired, in de- 

 tail, the proportions of their different fabrics, but 

 had formed no conception of their combination. 

 My mind was bewildered amidft fuch a multipli- 

 city of cuttings and carvings, of land and fea> 

 and I fhould, without hefitation, have afciibed 

 the whole to chance, had not the order, which I 

 perceived in each of the parts, fuggefted to me the 

 poffibility, that there might exift order alfo, in the 

 totality of the Work. 



I am now going to difplay the Globe under a 

 new afped. The Reader will, I hope, forgive 

 this digreffion, which exhibits to him one little 

 fragment of the materials I had laid up, for a geo- 

 graphical ftrudure, but which tends to prove the 

 univerfality of the natural Laws, whofe exiftence I 

 am endeavouring to eftablini. 1 (hall be, as ufual, 

 rapid and fuperficial : but it is a matter of very 

 inferior importance to myfelf, fhould I enfeeble 



ideas. 



