THE EARTH. 231 



CHAPTER XVII. 



OF THE CHANGES PRODUCED BY THE SEA UPON 

 THE- EARTH. 



FROM what has been said, as well of the earth as 

 of the sea, they both appear to be in continual 

 fluctuation. The earth, the common promptuary 

 that supplies subsistence to men, animals, and 

 vegetables, is continually furnishing its stores to 

 their support. But the matter which is thus de- 

 rived from it, is soon restored and laid down again 

 to be prepared for fresh mutations. The transmi- 

 gration of souls is no doubt false and whimsical ; 

 but nothing can be more certain than the trans- 

 migration of bodies : the spoils of the meanest 

 reptile may go to the formation of a prince ; and 

 on the contrary, as the poet has it, the body of 

 Caesar may be employed in stopping a beer-bar- 

 rel. From this, and other causes, therefore, the 

 earth is in continual change. Its internal fires, 

 the deviation of its rivers, and the falling of its 

 mountains, are daily altering its surface ; and 

 geography can scarcely recollect the lakes and 

 the valleys that history once described. 



But these changes are nothing to the instabi- 

 lity of the ocean. It would seem that inquietude 

 was as natural to it as its fluidity. It is first seen 

 with a constant and equable motion going towards 

 the west; the tides then interrupt this progression, 

 and for a time drive the waters in a contrary direc- 



