112 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



As it is not probable that the beafts of the new world 

 patted to it by fwimming, or over ice, nor that they were 

 tranfported either by men or by angels, nor created 

 afrefh by God, we ought to believe that the quadrupeds, 

 as well as the reptiles which are found in America, paff- 

 ed to it by land, and of courfe that the two continents 

 were formerly united. This is the opinion of Acofta, 

 Grotius, BufFon, and other great men. We are far from 

 adopting thefyftem of count de BufFon in its full extent: 

 he cannot perfuade us, however eloquent his philofophy 

 and great his learning, that that which is now land has 

 once been the bed of the fea ; or, that the old conti- 

 nent has been fubjecl: to a general - inundation diftinft 

 from that of Noah, and more tailing than it. In the 

 feries of forty centuries and upwards, comprehended in 

 the hiftory of the facred writings, there is no chafm or 

 void by which we could account for this fuppofed inun- 

 dation. In our third DifTertation we mall mew there 

 are no grounds to believe that the new continent has 

 fufFered any inundation different from that of Noah. 



There is not a doubt, however, that our planet has 

 been fubjecl: to great viciffitudes fince the deluge; an- 

 cient and modern hiftories confirm the truth which Ovid 

 has fung in the name of Pythagoras : — 



Vidi ego quod fuerat quondam folidijfima tellus, 

 EJfe f return ; vidi facias ex aquore terras. 



At prefent they plough thofe lands over which mips 

 formerly failed, and now they fail over lands which were 

 formerly ploughed : earthquakes have fwallowed fome 

 lands, and fubterraneous fires have thrown up others: 

 the rivers have formed new foil with their mud : the fea 



retreating 



