6 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



cultivation, and at which, therefore, they may have 

 assumed a durable form. 



First Appearance of the Earth. 

 When the traveller passes over those fertile 

 plains where gently flowing streams nourish in 

 their course an abundant vegetation, and where 

 the soil, inhabited by a numerous population, 

 adorned with flourishing villages, opulent cities, 

 and superb monuments, is never disturbed, except 

 by the ravages of war, or by the oppression of 

 the powerful, he is not led to suspect that Nature 

 also has had her intestine wars, and that the sur- 

 face of the globe has been broken up by revolu- 

 tions and catastrophes. But his ideas change as 

 soon as he digs into that soil which now presents 

 so peaceful an aspect, or ascends to the hills which 

 border the plain ; his ideas are expanded, if I may 

 use the expression, in proportion to the expansion 

 of the view, and begin to embrace the full extent 

 and grandeur of those ancient events, when he 

 climbs the more ejevated chains, whose base is 

 skirted by these hills, or when, by following the 

 beds of the torrents which descend from those 

 chains, he penetrates, as it were, into their interior. 



First proofs of Revolutions on the surface of the Globe. 



The lowest and most level parts of the earth, 

 exhibit nothing, even when penetrated to a very 



