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every where the waters appear to have subsided from 

 its ancient levels ; and imagination may anticipate an 

 era at which, even the banks of Newfoundland will be 

 left bare." It seems too, that Lucan entertained a 

 similar belief with respect to the Syrtes in the Medi- 

 terranean, for he says, 



4< Perhaps, in distant ages, t'will be found, 

 When future suns have ruu their burning round, 

 These Syrtes shall all be dry and solid ground : 

 Small are the depths their scanty waves retain, 

 And earth grows daily on the yielding main." 



Row's Lucan. 



Mr. Clinton in his excellent introductory lecture to 

 the literary and philosophical society, (New-York,) 

 adds two other kinds of alluvial formation, (viz.) one 

 occasioned by "the subsidence or extinction of lakes," 

 another, from " the overflowing, retreat, and change of 

 rivers.'' 



It is a circumstance much to be regretted, that in al- 

 most all our researches into the operations of nature, 

 our views of a subject are too frequently arrested, and 

 our opinions too often swayed by some seemingly im- 

 portant detail or feature, which presents itself to view, 

 and which may be either accidental, or adventitious. 

 Such, it appears to me, must have been the case with 

 all those who have endeavored to prove that the sea is 

 constantly retreating, and will ultimately become ex- 

 tinct ; the plain and only inference that can be drawn 

 from the writings of several on this subject : among 



