STUDY IV. 209 



to produce an annual overflow of the Amazon, of 

 the Oroonoko, and of feveral other great rivers of 

 the New World, and to inundate a great part of 

 Brafil, of Guiana, and of the Terra Firma of Ame- 

 rica ; that the melting of part of the fnows on the 

 mountains of the Moon in Africa, occafions every 

 year the inundations of Senegal, contributes to 

 thofe of the Nile, and overflows vaft tracks of 

 country in Guinea, and the whole of Lower 

 Egypt ; and that fimilar efFedls are annually re- 

 produced in a confiderable part of fouthern Afia, 

 in the kingdoms of Bengal, of Siam, of Pegou, 

 and of Cochin-China, and in the diitridls watered 

 by the Tigris, the Euphrates, and many other 

 rivers of Afia, which have their fources in chains 

 of mountains perpetually covered with ice, namely, 

 Taurus and Imaiis. Who, then, can entertain a 

 doubt, that the total fufion of the ices of both 

 •Poles, would be fufficient to fwcllthe Ocean above 

 every barrier, and completely to inundate the two 

 Continents ? 



The elevation of thefe two cupolas of polar ice, 

 vafl: as Oceans, mufb it not far furpafs the height 

 of the higheft land, when the fimple fragments of 

 their extremities, after they are half diflTolved, are 

 as high as the turrets of Notre-Dame ; nay, rife to 

 the height of from fifteen to eighteen hundred feet 

 above the Sea ? The ground on which Paris ftands, 



VOL. I. p at 



