MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 291 



take their turn on this globe.* Every mountain 

 and hill is becoming less and less, and is by little 

 and little apparently slowly sliding away into the 

 ocean ; and the same waste may be seen in the 

 many tons of earthy mud which every flooded river 

 carries off, and deposits in the sea. The lakes are 

 also continually operated upon, by the wasting or 

 wearing away of the outlets that form the barriers 

 by which their waters were and are at present 

 stayed, and it is not unlikely that every valley was 

 once a lake, till they were operated upon like those 

 still left, preparatory to their change to dry land. 

 But the early history of mankind, nor the 

 changes, the wonders, nor the mighty events 

 which have happened to this globe, cannot be 

 known ; and we may reasonably suppose men 

 must have long remained in darkness and ignor- 

 ance till rescued from such a state first by hiero- 

 glyphics and then by letters. What they were 

 before these enabled them to interchange their 

 thoughts, preparatory to a social intercourse, is 

 involved in darkness, on which conjecture may 

 invent and exhaust itself in vain. Nation after 

 nation, in unknown ages past, may have glided 

 away, or have been by the accumulation of their 

 own wickedness, more suddenly hurled into obli- 

 vion, before the reasoning powers were drawn forth 

 or men bestowed the least thought upon the duties 

 they had to perform, or the business they had to 

 fulfil, as the will of the Creator while they sojourned 



* In my brother's colliery at Mickley Bank, about 30 fathoms 

 below the surface, perfect muscles have been found imbedded in 

 ironstone. In appearance they differed not from those newly taken 

 from the muscle scarp. The shells effervesced with acid, but the 

 insides were ironstone, the same as that with which they were sur- 

 rounded. 



