THE EARTH. 11? 



leigbbouring trees, were easily overthrown by the winds, and, without 

 interruption, remained on the places where they happened to fall. 

 The forest, thus fallen, must necessarily have stopped up the currents, 

 both from land and sea ; and turned into great lakes, what were be- 

 fore but temporary streams. The working of the waters here, the 

 consumption and decay of rotten boughs and branches, and the vast 

 increase of water-moss which flourishes upon marshy grounds, soon 

 formed a covering over the trunks of the fallen trees, and raised the 

 earth several feet above its former level. The earth thus every day 

 swelling, by a continual increase from the sediment of the waters, and 

 by the lightness of the vegetable substances of which it was com- 

 posed, soon overtopt the waters by which this intumescence was at 

 first effected ; so that it entirely got rid of its inundations, or only 

 demanded a slight assistance from man for that purpose." This may 

 be the origin of all bogs, which are performed by the putrefactiou 

 of vegetable substances, mixed with the mud and slime deposited by 

 waters, and at length acquiring a sufficient consistency. 



From this we see what powerful effects the sea is capable of pro- 

 ducing upon its shores, either by overflowing some, or deserting 

 others ; by altering the direction of these, and rendering those crag- 

 gy and precipitate, which before were shelving. But the influence it 

 has upon these, is nothing to that which it has upon that great body 

 of earth, which forms its bottom. It is at the bottom of the sea that 

 the greatest wonders are performed, and the most rapid changes are 

 produced ; it is there that the motion of the tides and the currents have 

 their whole force, and agitate the substances of which their bed is 

 composed. But all these are almost wholly hid from human curiosi- 

 ty ; the miracles of the deep are performed in secret ; and we have 

 but little information from its abysses, excepi what we receive by in- 

 spection at very shallow depths, or by the plummet, or from divers, 

 who are kown to descend from twenty to thirty fathoms.* 



The eye can reach but a very short \vay into the depths of the 

 sea ; and that only when its surface is glassy and serene. In many 

 seas it perceives nothing but a bright sandy plain at bottom, extending 

 for several hundred miles, without an intervening object. But in 

 others, particularly in the Red Sea, it is very different : the whole 

 bottom of this extensive bed of waters is, literally speaking, a forest of 

 submarine plants and corals, formed by insects for their habitation, 

 sometimes branching out to a great extent. Here are seen the mad- 

 repores, the sponges, mosses, sea-mushrooms, and other marine pro- 

 ductions, covering every part of the bottom; so that some have even 

 supposed the sea to have taken its name from the colour of its plants 

 below. However, these plants are by no means peculiar to this sea, 

 as they are found in great quantities in the Persian Gulf, along the 

 coast of Africa, and those of Provence and Catalonia. 



The bottom of many parts of the sea, near America, presents a very 

 cntferent, though a very beautiful appearance. This is covered with 

 vegetables, which make it look as green as a meadow, and beneatb 

 are seen thousands of turtles, and other sea animals, feeding thereon 



PhU. Trans, vol. iv. part ii. p. 192. 



