THE EARTH. m 



Rea, and, in a manner, rescued from its bosom. The surface of the 

 earth, in this country, is below the level of the bed of the sea; ami 

 f remember, upon approaching the coast, to have looked down upon 

 it from the sea, as into a valley ; however, it is every day rising 

 higher by the depositions made upon it by the sea, the Rhine, and 

 (lie Meuse; and those parts which formerly admitted large men 01 

 war, are now known to be too shallow to receive ships of very mode- 

 rn) e burthen.* The province of Jucatan, a peninsula in the gulf of 

 Mexico, was formerly a part of the sea. This tract, which stretches 

 out into the ocean a hundred leagues, and which is above thirty 

 broad, is every where, at a moderate depth below the surface, com- 

 posed of shells, which evince that its land once formed the bed of 

 the sea. In France, the town of Aigues Mortes was a port in the 

 time of St. Louis, which is now removed more than four miles from 

 the sea. Psalmodi, in the same kingdom, was an island in the year 

 815, but is now more than six miles from the shore. All along the 

 coasts of Norfolk, I am very well assured, that in the memory of man 

 the sea has gained fifty yards in some places, and lost as much in others. 



Thus numerous, therefore, are the instances of new lands having 

 been produced from the sea, which, as we see, is brought about two 

 different ways : first, by the waters raising banks of sand and mud where 

 their sediment is deposited ; and, secondly, by their relinquishing tho 

 shore entirely, and leaving it unoccupied to the industry of man. 



But as the sea has been thus known to recede from some lands, so 

 has it, by fatal experience, been found to encroach upon others ; and 

 probably these depredations on one part of the shore, may account 

 for their dereliction from another ; for the current which rested upon 

 some certain bank, having got an egress in some other place, it no 

 longer presses upon its former bed, but pours all its stream into the 

 Hew entrance ; so that every inundation of the sea may be attended 

 with some correspondent dereliction of another shore. 



However this be, we have numerous histories of the sea's inunda- 

 tions, and its burying whole provinces in its bosom. Many countries 

 that have been thus destroyed, bear melancholy witness to the truth 

 of history ; and show the tops of their houses, and the spires of their 

 steeples, still standing at the bottom of the water. One of the most 

 considerable inundations we have in history, is that which happened 

 in the reign of Henry 1. which overflowed the estates of the Earl 

 Godwin, and forms now that bank called the Goodwin Sands. In the 

 year 1546, a similar eruption of the sea destroyed a hundred thousand 

 persons in the territory of Dort ; and yet a greater number round 

 Dullart. In Friezland, and Zealand, there were more than three hun- 

 dred villages overwhelmed ; and their ruins continue still visible at the 

 bottom of the water in a clear day. The Baltic sea has, by slow de 

 grees, covered a large part of Pomerania ; and, among others, destroyed 

 and overwhelmed the famous port of Vineta. In the same manner, 

 the Norwegian sea has formed several little islands from the main 

 land, and still daily advances upon the continent. The German sea has 

 advanced upon the shores of Holland, near Catt ; so that the ruins of 



Buffon, vol. vi. p. 424 

 VOL. I H 



