144 EARTHQUAKES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. [Ch. XXIX. 



must 



diminished- That architects do not despair of successfully 

 contending with the danger^ is shown by their frequently 

 advertising their houses in Sicily as earthquake-proof. 



I shall endeavour to point out in the sequel, tha.t the 

 general tendency of 



movements 



effects are considered for a sufficient lapse of ages, is emi- 

 nently beneficial, and that they constitute an essential part 

 of that mechanism by which the integrity of the habitable 

 surface is preserved, and the very existence and perpetuation 

 of dry land secured. Why the working of this same machi- 



m 



must 



so until we are permitted to investigate, not our planet alone 

 and its inhabitants, but other parts of the moral and material 



universe with which 



may 



connected. Could our 



survey embrace other worlds, and the events, not of a few 

 centuries only, but of periods as indefinite as those with 

 which geology renders us familiar, some apparent contradic- 

 tions might be reconciled, and some difficulties would doubt- 

 less be cleared up. But even then, as our capacities are 



scheme 



time 



space 



it 



presum 



suppose that all 



emoved 



On 



the contrary, 

 number, altho 



mioflit 



perhaps, go 



on augmenting in 



Nature should increase at the same 



justly said, that the greater the circle of light, the greater the 

 boundary of darkness by which it is surrounded."^ 



* Sir H. Daw, Consolations in Trayel, p. 246. 



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