VOL. XIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 83 



such only as I have chanced to meet with in England. As for the sand, I have 

 some reasons to think, that it was once the most exterior and general cover of 

 the surface of the whole earth. Because all our northern mountains are more 

 or less covered with it at this day, and the higher the mountains still the more 

 and the coarser the sand; because the rivers arising in the mountains do yet 

 daily bring it down in great quantities, and that it has been so in all probability 

 in all ages, since the first rains fell upon the face of the earth ; which seems to 

 me to be truth like, in that the sea-shores or mouths of rivers are usually barred 

 with it; besides the sandy sea-grounds in most places of the sea, and (which 

 seems a clear evidence for the length of time) for that the low grounds near 

 these rivers (which have been in all ages upon record, mosses) if you pierce so 

 deep into them as to discover their bottom, you meet with this mountain sand 

 in great quantities, and in some places a moss under that, and the same sand- 

 beds under that. Now if we consider how long this moss or turf is in 

 growing, it being mostly the leaves and roots of plants, we must allow very 

 many ages for this purpose. And although Herodotus boldly conjectures that 

 Egypt long before our times would be dammed up and useless, by the great 

 plenty of mud yearly brought down that vast river; yet it does not appear that 

 the country is much different from what it was in his time, so that the sand and 

 mud are still carried to sea. 



Another argument of the sands being the universal cover of the face of the 

 earth is, from the great hardness, and consequently the durableness and unal- 

 terable quality of this mineral, above any other in nature. For though many 

 things are called sand, from the smallness and little cohesion or dryness of the 

 grains, yet this kind of mountain sand above all others keeps its natural and 

 original magnitude, and is not made, as most sand is, by the attrition and wear- 

 ing of one particle of stone against another; but is of a constant and durable 

 figure; and therefore it seems to me for this reason to be the most fit for an 

 outside or cover to the globe of the earth. 



And if it shall be objected, that although we grant the high mountains of 

 England and Europe are usually first bedded with sand-rocks, if not still covered 

 in many places with loose sand, yet are there other mountains, as the high 

 wolds all over England, not so, but their uppermost beds of stone are soft 

 chalk, and on the smooth surface no appearance of any sand. This indeed is 

 in part granted; but that there is nowhere any sand upon the chalk mountains, 

 is not true; for to instance in those inland sand hills above Boulogne in Picardy, 

 which sand is the very same with that on the sea-shore at Calais, and although 

 this is not England, yet the sea has but accidentally divided us ; for from Dun- 

 stable ex. gra. in England, even as far as the walls of Paris by Calais, is as it 



