VI ADVERTISEMENT. 



fore, which they endure in our fields, is occa- 

 -fioned by the inconfideratenefs of Man, not the 

 improvidence of Nature. Partridges and hares 

 do not die of hunger in the forefts of the North, 

 where the Winter lafts for fix months together: 

 they know well how to find under the fnow, the 

 herbage and fir apples of the preceding year, which 

 Nature has buried there to ferve them as a feafon- 

 able fupply. 



The other objeflions raifed, againft fome of my 

 pofitions, by the Gentlemen Journalifts, are nei- 

 ther more important, nor much better founded. 

 Mod of them treat as a paradox the caufe of the 

 flux and reflux of the Sea, which I afcribe to the 

 alternate fufion of the polar ices ; which ices, in 

 the Winter proper to each Hemifphere, are from 

 five to fix thoufand leagues in circumference, but 

 in their Summer, are not above two or three thou- 

 fand. But as no one of them has produced a fingle 

 argument, either againft the principles of my theory, 

 or againft the fads by which I fupport them, or 

 againft the confequences which I thence deduce, 

 I have nothing to fay in reply, unlefs that, as to 

 the point in queftion, they have pronounced a de- 

 cifion, without having examined into the merits 

 of the caufe ; an expeditious, indeed, but not per- 

 feélly equitable, method of adminiftering juftice. 



The 



