30 THEORY OP THE EARTH. 



soil, inhabited by a numerous population, adorned 

 with flourishing villages, opulent cities, and superb 

 monuments, is never disturbed except by the rava- 

 ges of war and the oppression of tyrants, he is not 

 led to suspect that nature also has had her intes- 

 tine wars, and that the surface of the globe has 

 been much convulsed by successive revolutions 

 and various catastrophes. But his ideas change 

 as soon as he digs into that soil which presented 

 such a peaceful aspect, or ascends the hills which 

 border the plain; they are expanded, if I may 

 use the expression, in proportion to the expansion 

 of his view ; and they begin to embrace the full 

 extent and grandeur of those ancient events to 

 which I have alluded, ^when he climbs the more 

 elevated chains whose base is skirted by these 

 first hills, or when, by following the beds of the 

 descending torrents, he penetrates into their inte- 

 rior structure, which is thus laid open to his inspec- 

 tion. 



4. First Proofs of Revolutions on the Surface of 

 the Globe* 



The lowest and most level parts of the earth, 

 when penetrated to a very great depth, exhibit 

 nothing but horizontal strata composed of various 

 substances, and containing almost all of them in- 

 numerable marine productions. Similar strata, 



* Note A, at the end of the Essay. < jj&i 



