THE OCEAN, 



meet, and which thus receive new increase every day, so tlrat in 

 time the place seems to promise fair for being habitable earth. On 

 many parts of the coasts of France, England, Holland, Germany, 

 and Prussia, the sea has been sensibly known to retire. 



In Italy there is a considerable piece of ground gained at the 

 mouth of the river Arno; and Ravenna, that once stood by the 

 sea-side, is now considerably removed from it. But we need 

 scarce mention these, when we rind that the whole republic of 

 Holland seems to be a conquest upon the sea, 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. The province of Jucatan, 

 a peninsula in the gulph of Mexico, was formerly a part of the 

 sea : this tract, which stretches out into the ocean an hundred 

 leagues, and which is above thirty broad, is every where, at a mo, 

 derate depth below the surface, composed of shells, which evince 

 that its land once formed the bed of the sea. In France, the towu 

 of Aigues Mortes was a port in the times 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, there 

 is good reason- for belief, that in the memory of man the sea has 

 gained fifty yards in some places, and has lost as.mucli in others. 



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

 l>een produced from the sea, which, as we see, is brought about 

 two different ways : first, by the waters raising banks of saud anU 

 mud where their sediment is deposited ; and secondly, by their re. 

 linquishing the 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 incroacii 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, no longer presses upon its former bed, but pours a'l its 

 stream into the new entrance, so that every inundation of the sen 

 may be attended with some correspondent dereliction of another 

 shore. 



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

 inundations, and its burying whole provinces in its besom. Many 



