114 HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



like manner, adds the above author, the province of the 

 Yellow River in China, and that of Louifiana, have only 

 been formed of the mud of rivers. Pliny, Seneca, Diodo- 

 rus, and Strabo, report innumerable examples of fimilar 

 revolutions, which we omit, that our DhTertation may 

 not become too prolix ; as alfo many modern revolutions, 

 which are related in the theory of the earth of the count 

 de BufTon and other authors. In our America, all thofe 

 who have obferved with philofophic eyes the peninfula of 

 Yucatan, do not doubt that that country has once been 

 the bed of the fea; and on the contrary, in the channel 

 of Bahama many indications mew the ifland of Cuba to 

 have been once united to the continent of Florida. In 

 the itrait which feparates America from Alia many 

 iflands are found, which probably were the mountains 

 belonging to that tract of land which we fuppofe to have 

 been fwallowed up by earthquakes; which is made more 

 probable by the multitude of volcanos which we know 

 of in the peninfula of Kamtfchatka. We imagine, how- 

 ever, that the finking of that land, and the feparation of 

 the two continents, has been occafioned by thofe great 

 and extraordinary earthquakes mentioned in the hifto- 

 ries of the Americans, which formed an sera aJmofl as 

 memorable as that of the deluge. The hiftories of the 

 Toltecas fix fuch earthquakes in the year 1 Tecpatl ; but, 

 as we know not to what century that belonged, we can 

 form no conjecture of the time that great calamity hap- 

 pened. If a great earthquake mould overwhelm the 

 ifthmus of Suez, and there fhould be at the fame time as 

 great a fcarcity of hiitorians as there were in the fint 

 ages after the deluge^ it would be doubted in three or 

 four hundred years after, whether Afia had ever been 

 united by that part to Africa, and many would firmly 

 deny it. 



V. The 



