I .86, J 



Roofer furface, and remains even now a Tandy defart, while the 

 interior more mountainous trails, intercepting, and thus coUeding, 

 the wafhed off foil, are', to this day, celebrated for their fertility, 

 2 Niebuhr, 45 and 320. Irilh edition. To a fimilar tranfport- 

 ation of the anticnt vegetable foil, the vaft fandy defarts of Africa, 

 and the barrennefs of mofl: of the plains of Perfia, may be attri- 

 buted. 



The progrefs of the Siberian inundation once more claims our 

 attention ; that it muft have been here for fome time ftationary 

 may be inferred from its confinement between the Altaifchan 

 elevation on the fouth, and the Ouralian mountains on the weft, 

 and the circumpolar mountains on the fide of Greenland. Hence 

 the excavations obferved on the northern parts of the former, and 

 the abrupt declivities on the eaftern flanks of the latter, while the 

 weftern difcover none. New reinforcements frorti^ the fouth-eaft 

 muft at length have furmounted all obftacles ; but the fubfequent 

 furges could not have conveyed fuch a quantity of fhells or marine 

 produdions as the firft, and hence, though many are found on the 

 more northern plains, fcarce any are found on the great Altaifchan 

 elevation. 



The mafs of waters now colleded and fpread over the Artie 

 regions, muft have defcended partly fouthwards over the defarts 

 «f Tartary, into countries with which we are too little acquainted 

 to tract its ravages, but from th« oppofition it mufl; have met in 



thefe 



I 



