A Morning's Walk from London to Kew. 



1816.] 



was thirty-five years old, and the other 

 nearly thirty, and tlieir venerable ap- 

 pearance and pleasant pasture excited 

 a stron>f interest in favour oi" their kind- 

 heartecl mistress. Such is the influence 

 of ^ood example, that I found her pitd- 

 dock was opposite the residence of the 

 equally amialjle Valentine jMorris, 

 who so liherally provided for all his live- 

 stock about thirty years ago, and wliose 

 oldest horse died lately, after enjoying 

 liis master's legacy above twenty-four 

 years. 



1 now descended towards a rude space 

 near the Thames, which appeared to be 

 in the state in which the occasional 

 overflowings and gradual retrocession of 

 the river had left it. It was one of those 

 wastes which the lord of the manor had 

 rot yet enabled some industrious culti- 

 vator to disguise ; and in large tracts of 

 which Great Britain still exhibits the 

 surface of the earth in the pristine state 

 in which it was left by the secondary 

 causes that have given it form. 'I'hc 

 Thames,doubtless, in aremote age, cover- 

 ed the entire scite; but it is the tendency 

 of rivers to narrow themselves by promo- 

 ting prolific vegetable creations on their 

 consefjuently increasing and encroaching 

 banks. In due time, the course of the 

 river is thus choaked, and the detained 

 ivaters then form lakes in the interior. 

 The lakes likewise generate encroach- 

 ing banks, which finally fill up their ba- 

 gins, when new rivers are formeil on 

 higher levels. These, in their turn, be- 

 come interrnpted, and repetitions of the 

 former circle of causes produce one 

 classof those elevations of land above the 

 level of the sea, which have so much 

 puzzled geologists. The only condition 

 which a surface of dry land requires to 

 increase and raise itself, is the absence 

 of .salt water, consequent on which 

 is aa accumulation of vegetable and 

 animal remains. The Thames has not 

 latterly been allowed to produce its na- 

 tural effects, because for two thousand 

 years the banks have been inhabited by 

 man, who, unable to appreciate the ge- 

 neral laws by which the phenomena of 

 the earth arc produced, has sedulously 

 kept open the course of the river, and 



firevenled (he formation of inteiior 

 akes. 'J'hc Caspian Sea, and all similar 

 inland seas and lakes, were, for the most 

 part, formed from the ehoakiiig up of ri- 

 vers, which once constituted their out- 

 let*. If the course of nature be not in- 

 terrupted by the misdirected industry 

 of man, the gradual dcsircation of :iil 

 such collcctipus uf v,ixt,ur will, in due 



213 



time, produce land of Ligher levels on 

 their suites. In like manner, tiie great 

 lakes of North America, if the St. Law- 

 rence be not sedulously kept ojicn, will, 

 in tlic course of ages, be filled up by the 

 gradual encroachment of their banks, 

 and the raising of tlicir bottoms with 

 strata of vegetable and animal remains. 

 New rivers would then flow over these 

 increased elevations, and the ultimate 

 eilcct would be to raise that part of the 

 contiiient of North America several hun- 

 dred feet above its present level. Eveu 

 the very scite on which I .stand was, ac- 

 cording to Webster, once a vast basin, 

 extending from the Nore to near Head- 

 ing, but now filled up with vegetable 

 and animal remains ; and the illustrious 

 CuviER has discovered a similar basia 

 round the scite of Paris. These once 

 were Caspians created by the ehoaking 

 and final disappearance of some mighty 

 rivers — they have been filled up by gra- 

 dual encroachments, and now the 

 Thames and the Seine flow over them;— 

 but these, if left to themselves, will, in 

 their turn, generate new lakes or basins 

 — and t!ie succes.>iive recurrence of a si- 

 milar series of causes will continue to 

 produce similar effects, till ijitcrruptcd 

 by superior causes. 



The situation was so sequestered, and 

 therelore so favourable to conlemjila- 

 tion, that I could not avoid indulging 

 myself. What then are those suj>erior 

 causes, 1 exclaimed, which will inter- 

 rupt this scries of natural operations to 

 which man is indebted for the enchant- 

 ing visions of hill and dale, and for tht 

 elysium of beauty and i)lenty in which 

 he finds himself.' Alas, facts ])Jove, 

 however, that all things are transitory, 

 and that change of condition is the great 

 and immutable result of that motion 

 which is tiic chief instrument of eternal 

 causation, but which, in causing all phe- 

 nomena, wears £)ut exist ingorgHuizalioii* 

 while it is generating new ones. In the 

 motions of the earth as a planet, aic 

 to be discovered the .superior causes 

 which convert seas into continents, and 

 continents into seas. The.se sublime 

 changes are, probably, occasioned by 

 the progress of the perihelion point of 

 the earth's orbit through the ecliptic, 

 whi(;h i)asses from extreme northern to 

 extreme southern declination, and vice 

 versa every 10,450 years; and the maxi- 

 ma of the central forces in the pcrihelicju 

 occasion (he waters to aeennnilatc and 

 prej)onderatc upon either hemispiieie. 

 During 10,450 years, the sea is tliere- 

 i'oic gradually retiring' and oncroacliin{j 



