THE EARTH. 45 



We are informed by almost every traveller,* that 

 has described the Pyramids of Egypt, that one of 

 them is entirely built of a kind of free-stone, in 

 which these petrified shells are found in great 

 abundance. This being the case, it may be con- 

 jectured, as we have accounts of these pyramids 

 among the earliest records of mankind, and of 

 their being built so long before the age of Hero- 

 dotus, who lived but fifteen hundred years after 

 the flood, that even the Egyptian priests could 

 tell neither the time nor the cause of their erec- 

 tion ; I say, it may be conjectured that they 

 were erected but a short time after the flood. It 

 is not very likely, therefore, that the marine sub- 

 stances found in one of them, had time to be 

 formed into a part of the solid stone, either dur- 

 ing the deluge, or immediately after it; and, 

 consequently, their petrifaction must have been 

 before that period. And this is the opinion M. 

 Buffon has all along so strenuously endeavoured 

 to maintain ; having given specious reasons to 

 prove, that such shells were laid in the beds where 

 they are now found, not only before the deluge, 

 but even antecedent to the formation of man, at 

 the time when the whole earth, as he supposes, 

 was buried beneath a covering of waters. 



But while there are many reasons to persuade 

 us that these extraneous fossils have been de- 

 posited by the sea, there is one fact that will 

 abundantly serve to convince us that the earth 

 was habitable, if not inhabited, before these ma- 

 rine substances came to be thus deposited ; for 



* Hasselquist, Sandys. 



