THE EARTH. 11? 



same, after it has thus overwhelmed and sunk the land so deep be- 

 neath its slime, capriciously retiring from the same coasts, and leaving 

 that habitable once more, which it had formerly destroyed. All this 

 is wonderful ; and perhaps, instead of attempting to inquire after the 

 cause, which has hitherto been inscrutable, it will best become us to 

 rest satisfied with admiration. 



At the city of JVIodena in Italy, and about four miles round it, 

 wherever it is dug, when the workmen arrive at the depth of sixty- 

 three feet, they come to a bed of chalk, which they bore with an au- 

 ger five feet deep : they then withdraw from the pit, before the auger 

 is removed, and upon its extraction, the water bursts up through the 

 aperture with great violence, and quickly fills this new-made well, 

 which continues full, and is affected neither by rains nor droughts. 

 But that which is most remarkable in this operation, is the layers of 

 earth as we descend. At the depth of fourteen feet are found the ru- 

 ns of an ancient city, paved streets, houses, floors, and different pieces 

 jf Mosaic. Under this is found a solid earth, that would induce one to 

 think had never been removed ; however, under it is found a soft 

 oozy earth, made up of vegetables ; and at twenty-six feer depth, large 

 trees entire, such as walnut-trees, with the walnuts still sticking on the 

 stem, and their leaves and branches in exact preservation. At twen- 

 ty-eight feet deep, a soft chalk is found, mixed with a vast quantity 

 sf shells; and this bed is eleven feet thick. Under this, vegetables 

 are found again, with leaves, and branches of trees as before ; and 

 thus alternately chalk and vegetable earth to the depth of sixty-three 

 feet. These are the layers wherever the workmen attempt to bore ; 

 while in many of them they also find pieces of charcoal, bones, and 

 bits of iron. Frojn this description, therefore, it appears, that this 

 country has been alternately overflowed and deserted by the sea, one 

 age after another : nor were these overflowings and retirings of trifling 

 depth, or of short continuance. When the sea burst in, it must have 

 been a long time in overwhelming the branches of the fallen forest 

 with its sediment ; and still longer in forming a regular bed of shells 

 eleven feet over them. It must have, therefore, taken an age, at least, 

 to make any one of these layers ; and we may conclude, that it must 

 have been many ages employed in the production of them all. The 

 land also, upon being deserted, must have had time to grow compact, 

 to gather fresh fertility, and to be drained of its waters before it could 

 be disposed to vegetation, or before its trees could have shot forth 

 again to maturity. 



We have instances nearer home of the same kind given us in the 

 Philosophical Transactions ; one of them by Mr. Derham. An inunda- 

 tion of the sea, at Dagenham, in Essex, laying bare a part of the ad- 

 jacent pasture for about two hundred feet wide, and, in some places, 

 twenty deep, it discovered a number of trees that had lain there for 

 many ages before ; these trees, by laying long under ground, were 

 become black and hard, and their fibres so tough, that one might as 

 easily break a wire, as any of them : they lay so thick in the place 

 where they were found, that in many parts he could step from one tr 

 another : he conceived also, that not only all the adjacent marshes, 

 for several hundred acres, were covered underneath with such timber, 



