THE KARTH. 191 



woi:deifiil ; and, perhaps, instead of attempting to inquire after 

 the cause, which has hitherto been inserutiible, it will best be- 

 come us to rest satisfied with admiration. 



At the city of Modena in Italy, and about four miles round 

 it, wherever it is dug, when the workmen arrive at the depth of 

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

 with an auger five feet deep : they then withdraw from the pit, 

 before the auger 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 remark- 

 able in this operation, is the layers of earth as we descend. 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 removed; however, under it is found a 

 soft oozy earth, made up of vegetables ; and at twenty-six feet 

 depth, large trees entire, such as walnut-trees, with the walnuts 

 still sticking on the stem, and their leaves and branches in exact 

 preservation. At twenty-eight feet deep, a soft chalk is found, 

 mixed with a vast qu;';itity of shells ; and this bed is eleven feet 

 thick. Under this, vegetables are found again, with leaves, and 

 branches of trees as before ; and thus alternately chalk and veget- 

 able 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 country has been 

 alternately overflowed and deserted by the sea, one age after 

 another : nor wpre 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 sediment; and still longer in forming a 

 regular bed of shells eleven feet over them. It must have, there- 

 fore, 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 production of them all. The land also, upon beuig de- 

 serted, must have had time to grow compact, to gather fresh 

 fertility, and to be drained of its waters before it could be dis- 

 posed to vegetation, or before its trees could have shot forth 

 again to maturity. 



