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continues its course into the Atlantic ocean. So the 

 vast and deep cave in Mount Taurus, receives the Ti- 

 gris, and gives it a passage to the other side. The same 

 fiver afterward hides itself under ground, for near 

 twelve miles, and then breaking out again, disembogues 

 into the Euphrates, near Babylon. 



To come nearer home ; the Guadiana, that runs be- 

 tween Spain and Portugal, runs thirty-two miles under 

 ground. Yea, in our own country, the Mole, in Surry, 

 falls into the ground near Boxhill, and rises again at a 

 considerable distance. 



Hence we may safely collect that the earth is filled 

 with subterraneous aqueducts and caverns, full of air 

 and vapour from copious exhalations from all sorts of 

 minerals, as well as water. 



Besides these cavities, there are mountains whose 

 bowels are in a continual flame. And their belching out 

 ashes, smoke, broken rocks, and minerals, argue vast va- 

 cuities, and huge magazines of combustible matter, 

 which are lodged therein. In the chain of mountains, 

 called the Andes, in America, there are no less than fif- 

 teen volcanos, by whose burnings, caverns as big as 

 whole kingdoms are made, and receive the cataracts of 

 mighty rivers. And not only here, but over all the ear 

 there are so many channels clefts, and caverns, that ' 

 do not know, when or where we stand upon good ground. 

 Indeed it might amaze men of a stout heart, could they 

 see into the world beneath their feet, view the dark re- 

 cesses of nature, and observe the strongest building 

 stand upon an immense vault, at the bottom of whicl 

 runs an unfathomable sea, and whose upper hollows, a 

 filled with stagnating air, and the expirations of sulph 

 feons and bituminous matter. 



Therefore as there are no large tracts of land, withe 

 volcanos and sulphureous caverns, from which branch 

 ing into smaller pipes, the subterraneous heat is con- 

 veyed throughout the earth : so no country can promise 

 itself an entire immunity from earthquakes : even were 

 there no other cause of these dreadful events, but sub- 

 terraneous fires. Especially, when it is considered, that 





