

k 



, 







" ; 



i ; - 



l 





ft 



k Tir 









- 





. 













,k 







■ 





Ch. II.] 



KNOWLEDGE OF THE ANCIENTS 



£5 



Lipari Islands, Iscliia, and others, were closed up, the impri- 

 soned fire and wind might have prodnced far more vehement 

 movements * The doctrine, therefore, that volcanos are 

 safety-valves, and that the subterranean convulsions are pro- 





most 



modern 



We learn from a passage in Strabo,f 



immortal, but 



OI Lilt? V^CtjUllOXi JL^-L U.-LV4.C. txxu^v ~- 



destined to survive catastrophes both of fire and water. 



That 



them 



much of the: 

 remembered 



b 



Caesar, it will be 



made 



computations.! 



P ^._This philosopher had no theoretical opinions of his 

 own concerning changes of the earth's surface ; and m this 

 department, as in others, he restricted himself to the task of 

 a compiler, without reasoning on the facts stated by him 

 attempting to digest them into regular order. 



But his enu- 



meration 



Mediterranean, and of other convulsions, shows that the 

 ancients had not been inattentive observers of the changes 

 which had taken place within the memory of man. 



Such, then, appear to have been the opinions entertained 

 before the Christian era, concerning the past revolutions of 

 our globe. Although no particular investigations had been 

 made for the express purpose of interpreting the monuments 

 of ancient changes, they were too obvious to be entirely dis- 

 regarded ; and the observation of the present course of 

 nature presented too many proofs of alterations continually 

 in progress on the earth to allow philosophers to believe that 



and would continue to remain 



emained 

 But they had 



never compared attentively the results of the destroying and 

 reproductive operations of modern times with those of remote 

 eras nor had they ever entertained so much as a conjecture 

 concerning the comparative antiquity of the human race, or 



animals 



* Strabo, lib. vi. p. 396. 



f Book iv. 



| L. vi. ch. xiii . 





