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fertilize a foil produced by the decompofition of primary moun- 

 tains ; from the animals thus deftroyed the phofphoric acid found 

 in many ores may have originated. 



But the completion of this cataftrophe was undoubtedly efFcdl- 

 cd, as Mofes alfo flates, by the invafion of the waters of the great 

 abyfs, moft probably, as I have faid, that immenfe trad of ocean 

 ftretching from the Philipine iflands or rather from the Indian 

 continent on the one fide to terra-firma on the other, and thence 

 to the fouthern pole, and again from Buenyos Ayres to New 

 Holland, and thence to the pole. — Tracing its courfe on the eaft- 

 ern part of the globe, we fliall fee it impelled northwards with 

 refiftlefs impetuofity againft the continent which at that time pro- 

 bably united Afia and America. This appears to have been torn 

 up and fwept away (except the iflands that ftill remain) as far 

 north as latitude 40°; its further progrefs appears to have been 

 fomewhat checked by the lofty mountains of China and Tartary, 

 and thofe on the oppofite American coaft ; here then it began to 

 dilate itfelf over the collateral countries ; the part checked by the 

 Tartarian mountains forming, by fweeping away the foil the 

 defart of Coby, while the interior or middle torrent preffed forward 

 to the pole, but the interior furge being ftill more reftrided by the 

 contiguous, numerous and elevated mountains of eaftern Siberia 

 and America, muft at laft have arifen to a height and prefllire 

 which over-bore all refiflance, dafliing to pieces the heads of thofe 

 mountains, as Patrin and Steller remark, and bearing over them 



the 



