ITS PROPERTIES AND DIVISIONS. 2Q7 



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

 in augre five feet deep : they then withdraw from the pit, before the 

 augre 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 

 different layers of materials found in the course of the descent. At the 

 depth of fourteen feet are found the ruins of an ancient city, paved 

 streets, houses, floors, and different pieces of Mosaic. Under this is 

 found a solid earth, that would induce one to think had never been re- 

 moved; however, under it is found a soft ozy earth, made up of ve- 

 getables; and at twenty-six feet depth, large trees entire, such as 

 walnut-trees, with the walnuts still sticking on the stein, and their 

 leaves and branches in exact preservation. At twenty-eight feet deep, 

 a soft chaik is found, mixed witii a vast quantity of shells; and this 

 bed is eleven feet thick. Under this, vegetables are found again, 

 with leaves, and branches of trees as before; and tlius 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. From this description, therefore, it appears, that this coun- 

 try 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 sediments; and, still longer in forming a regu- 

 lar 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 pro- 

 duction 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. 



From hence we see what powerful effects the sea is capable of 

 producing upon its shores, either by overflowing some or deserting 

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

 craggy and precipitate, which before were shelving. But the in- 

 fluence it has upon these is nothing to that which it ha,s upon tha 



