no A HISTORY OF 



:: is drilled against the rocks, and instantly disappears : nor is it 

 seen again for six hours; till the tide flowing, it is vomited forth with 

 tne same violence with which it was drawn in. The noise of this 

 dreadful vortex still farther contributes to increase its terror, which, 

 with the dashing of the waters, and the dreadful valley, if it may be 

 so called, caused by their circulation, makes one of the most tremen- 

 dous objects in nature. 



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 derived from it, is soon restored and laid down again to 

 be prepared for fresh mutations. The transmigration of souls is, no 

 doubt, false and whimsical ; but nothing can be more certain than the 

 transmigration 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-barrel. 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 moun 

 tains, are daily altering its surface ; and geography can scarce recol 

 lect the lakes and the valleys that history once described. 



But these changes are nothing to the instability 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 direction ; besides these agitations, the currents 

 act their part in a smaller sphere, being generally greatest where the 

 other motions of the sea are least ; namely, nearest the shore : the 

 winds also contribute their share in this universal fluctuation ; so that 

 scarcely any part of the sea is wholly seen to stagnate. 



Nil enini qu'iescit, undis impellitur unda, 

 Et spiritus et calor toto se corpore miscent. 



As this great element is thus changed, and continually labouring In- 

 ternally, it may be readily supposed that it produces correspondent 

 changes upon its shores, and those parts of the earth subject to its in' 

 fluence. In fact it is every day making considerable alterations, either 

 by overflowing its shores in one place, or deserting them in others; hy 

 covering over whole tracts of country that were cultivated and peo- 

 pled, at one time ; or by leaving its bed to be appropriated to the 

 purposes of vegetation, and to supply a new theatre for human indus- 

 try, at another. 



In this struggle between the earth and the sea for dominion, the 

 greatest number of our shores seem to defy the whole rage of tho 

 waves, both hy their height, and the rocky materials of which they 



