166 THEORY OF THE E 



Dolomieu, That, if there is any circumstance 

 thoroughly established in geology, it is, that the 

 crust of our globe has been subjected to a great 

 and sudden revolution, the epoch of which cannot 

 be dated much farther back than five or six thou- 

 sand years ago ; that this revolution had buried all 

 the countries which were before inhabited by men 

 and by the other animals that are now best known; 

 that the same revolution had laid dry the bed of 

 the last ocean, which now forms all the coun- 

 tries at present inhabited ; that the small number 

 of individuals of men and other animals that 

 escaped from the effects of that great revolu- 

 tion, have since propagated and spread over the 

 lands then newly laid dry; and consequently, that 

 the human race has only resumed a progressive 

 state of improvement since that epoch, by forming 

 established societies, raising monuments, collecting 

 natural facts, and constructing systems of science 

 and of learning. 



Yet farther, That the countries which are now 

 inhabited, and which were laid dry by this last re- 

 volution, had been formerly inhabited at a more 

 remote era, if not by man, at least by land animals ; 

 that, consequently, at least one previous revolution 

 had submerged them under the waters ; and that, 

 judging from the different orders of animals of 

 which we discover the remains in a fossil state, 



