STUDY IV. 



245 



tliefe interior communications the iflanders, at all 

 feafons, can make excurfions from ifle to ille, the 

 whole length of the chain, from North to South, 

 notwithftanding the violence of the currents which 

 feparate them. 



Every ille has it's proper fortification, propor- 

 tioned, if I may fay fo, to the danger to which it 

 is expofed from the billows of the Ocean. It is 

 not neceflary to fuppofe the water roufed into a 

 tempeft, in order to form an idea of their fury. 

 The fimple adtion of the trade-winds, however 

 uniform, is fufficient to give them, unremittingly, 

 the moft violent impulfion. Each of thefe billows, 

 joining, to the confiant velocity imprefled upon it 

 every inftant by the wind, an acquired velocity, 

 from it's particular movement, would form, after 

 running through a confiderable fpace, an enormous 

 mafs of water, were not it's courfe retarded by the 

 currents which crofs it, by the calms which llacken 

 it, but, above all, by the banks, the Ihallows, and 

 the iflands which break it. 



A very perceptible effeft of this accelerated ve- 

 locity of the waves is vifible on the coafts of Chili 

 and Peru, which undergo, however, only the 

 fimple concuffion and repercuffion of the waters 

 of the South Sea, The fiiores are inacceffible 

 through their whole extent, unlefs at the bottom 



R q of 



