

556 IMBEDDIXG OF THE KEMAINS OF MAN AND [Ch. XLYII. 



' To anyone/ says lie, ' who considers that on digging into 

 the earth, such quantities of shells, and in some places, bones 

 and horns of animals, are found sound and entire, after hav- 

 ing lain there in all probability some thousands of years, it 

 should seem probable that guns, medals, and implements in 

 metal or stone might have lasted entire, buried under ground 

 forty or fifty thousand years, if the world had been so old. 



it then to pass that no remains are found, no 

 antiquities of those numerous ages preceding the Scripture 

 accounts of time ; that no fragments of buildings, no public 

 monuments, no intaglios, cameos, statues, btsso-relievos, 

 medals, inscriptions, utensils, or artificial works of any kind, 

 are ever discovered, which may bear testimony to the exist- 

 ence of those mighty empires, those successions of monarchs 



How comes 



mi-gods, for so many 



Let us 



look forward and suppose ten or twenty thousand years to 

 come, during which time we will suppose that plagues, famine, 

 wars, and earthquakes shall have made great havoc in the 

 world, is it not highly probable that at the end of such a 

 period, pillars, vases, and statues now in being of granite, or 

 porphyry, or jasper (stones of such hardness as we know 



them 



any 



t 



considerable alteration), would bear record of these and pas 



Or that some of our current coins might then be dug 



ages 



up, or old walls and the foundations of buildings show them- 

 selves, as well as the shells and stones of the ])rime'val world, 

 which are preserved down to our times ? * 



We 



anticipate, like Berkeley, that if 

 the duration of the planet is indefinitely protracted, many 



human workmanship and the 



marine 



edifices and 



skeletons of men will be entombed in freshwater, 



and volcanic strata, and will continue to exist even when a 



great part of the present mountains, continents, and seas shall 



have disappeared. The earth's crust must be remodelled 



more 



becom 



be destroyed. One complete revolution will be inadequate to 



Alcipliron, or the Minute Philosopher, vol. ii.pp. 84, %b. 1732 



