172 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



How is it that they have not completely filled 

 up thefe bays, as they are IncefTantly hurling down 

 into them fubflances feparated from the land ? 

 Why is not the very bed of the Ocean choked up, 

 from the conllant accumulation of the fpoils of 

 vegetables, fands, rocks, and the wreck of earth, 

 which, on every fhower that falls, tinge with yel- 

 low the rivers which fall into it ? The waters of 

 the Ocean have not rifen a fingle inch fince Man 

 began to make obfervations, as might eafily be 

 demonflrated from the ftate of the moft ancient 

 fea-ports of the Globe, which are ftill, for the moft 

 part, at the fame level. 



Time permits me not to fpeak of the means em- 

 ployed by Nature for the conftruflion, the fup- 

 port, and the purification, of this im-menfe bafon : 

 they would fuggeft frefh fubjedt of admiration. 

 Enough has been faid to prove, that what in Na- 

 ture may appear to us the effeâ; of ruin, or chance, 

 is, in many cafes, the refult of intelligence the moft 

 profound. Not only, no hair falls from our head, 

 and no fparrow from Heaven to the ground, but 

 not a pebble rolls on the fliore of the Ocean, with- 

 out the permiffion of GOD : according to that 

 fublime expreflion of Job : Tempus pofuit tenehris, 

 y îmiverfonim finem Ipfe confiderat, lapideni quoque 

 €alipnis, ^ umbram mortis^. *' He fetteth an end 



* Job xxviii. 3. 



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