ITS PROPERTIES AND DIVISIONS. 



SECTION II. 



Alternate Advances and Recessions of the Sect, 



PROM what lias been already observed of the earth and the 

 ocean, there can be no doubt that they are both in a state of conti- 

 nual fluctuation. The earth, the common magazine for 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 transmigra- 

 tion 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 mountains, are daily altering its surface ; and geography can 

 no longer recollect the lakes and the vallies that history once fondly 

 dwelt upon. 



But these changes arc nothing to the instability of the ocean. It 

 Would seem that inquietude was as natural to it as 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 uni- 

 versal fluctuation ; so that scarcely any part of the sea is wholly 

 seen to stagnate. 



Nil enim qutescif, urulis impellitur uniia, 



Et spiiitns et calor toto se corpore mi scent *, 



As this great element is thus changed, and continually labouring 

 internally,' it 'may be readily supposed that it produces correspondent 

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

 influence. In fact, it is every day making considerable alterations, 

 either by overflowing its shores in one place, or deserting them in 

 others ; by covering over whole tracts of country, that were culti- 



* Nothing is still ; o'er surges surges pass ; 

 And heat and action mix through all the mass. 



U 2 



