STUDY IV. 267 



fliores the impurities of the Sea, as a Gardener 

 burns, at the end of Autumn, the refufe of his 

 garden. 



We find lavas, indeed, in the interior of coun- 

 tries ; but a proof that they are indebted to the 

 water for their original is this, that the volcanos 

 which produced them, became extin6t whenever 

 the waters failed them. Thefe volcanos were 

 kindled, like thofe which ftill fubfift, by vegetable 

 and animal fermentations, with which the Earth 

 was covered after the Deluge, when the fpoils of 

 fo many forefts, and of fo many animals, whofe 

 trunks and bones are flill found in our quarries, 

 floated on the furface of the Ocean, and formed 

 prodigious depofits, which the currents accumu- 

 lated in the cavities of the mountains. It cannot 

 be doubted, that, in this ftate, they caught fire by 

 the efFe6t of fermentation merely, juft as we fee 

 flacks of damp hay catch fire in our meadows. It 

 is impofTible to call in queftion thefe ancient con- 

 flagrations, the traditions of which are preferved in 

 Antiquity, and which immediately follow thofe of 

 the Deluge. In the ancient Mythology, the hif- 

 tory of the ferpent Python, produced by the cor- 

 ruption of the waters, and that of Phaeton, who 

 fet the world on fire, immediately follow the 

 hiflory of Philemon and Baucis *, efcaped from 



* The Author, undoubtedly, means Deucalion and Pyrrha. 



the 



