Il 
STREICHTS OF 
Dover. 
CHALKY STRATA. 
So BRE or A ae de 
Here the fine ftudy of Geography fhould ftep in'to our affiftance. The outline 
of the terreftrial globe fhould be traced; the feveral approximations between part 
and part fhould be attended to; the nature of the oceans obferved ; the various 
iflands pointed out, as the fteps, the baiting-ptaces where mankind’ might have 
refted in its paffage from an overcharged continent. 
The manners of the people ought not lefs to be attended to; and their changes, 
both mental and corporeal, by comparifon of the prefent ftate of remote people with 
nations with whom they had common anceftors, and who may have been difcovered 
ftill to retain their primzval feats. Some leading cuftoms may ftill have been pre- 
ferved in both; or fome monuments of antiquity, proofs of congenial habitudes, 
poflibly no longer extant in the favage than in the cultivated branches of the 
common ftock. 
Let me take my departure northward, from the narrow ftreights of Dover, the 
fite of the ifthmus of the once peninfulated Britain. No certain caufe can be 
given for the mighty convulfion which tore us from the continent: whether it was 
rent by an earthquake, or whether it'was worn through by the continual dafhing 
of the waters, no Pythagoras is left to folve the Fortuna locorum : 
Vidi ego, quod fuerat quondam folidiffima tellus 
Effe fretum 
But it is moft probable, that the great philofopher alluded to the partial deftruion 
of the Atlantica infula, mentioned by Plato as a diftant tradition in his days *. 
It was effected by an earthquake and a deluge, which might have rent afunder 
the narrow ifthmus in queftion, and left Britain, large as it feems at prefent, the 
mere wreck of its original fize ¢. The Scilly ifles, the Hebrides, Orknies, Schet= . 
Jands, and perhaps the Feree iflands, may poffibly be no more than fragments of 
the once far-extended region. I have no quarrel about the word ifand. The 
little ifthmus, compared to the whole, might have been a junction never attend- 
ed to in the limited navigations of very early times. ‘The peninfula had never 
been wholly explored, and it paffed with the antients for a genuine ifland. 
The correfpondency of ftrata on part of the oppofite fhores of Britain and France, 
leaves no room to doubt but that they were once united. The chalky cliffs of - 
Blanc-nez, between Calais and Bologne, and thofe to the weftward of Dover, ex- 
a€tly tally : the laft are vaft and continued; the former fhort, and the termina- 
tion of the immenfe bed. Between Bologne and Folkfone (about fix miles from 
* Plato died about the year 347 before CurisT, aged 81. Pythagoras, about 497, aged ges 
+ Sce this opinion farther difeufled by Mr. Sommer, Ph. Tranf. Abridg. iv: 230» 
