152 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



this pretended inundation, are unqueflionably the efte&s 

 of the great rivers, the innumerable fountains, and the 

 very plentiful rains of America. If thofe lakes and 

 marines had been made by that inundation, and not by 

 the caufes we have affigned, they would, after fo many 

 ages, have been confumed and dried up by the continual 

 evaporation which the heat of the fun produces, parti- 

 cularly under the torrid zone ; or at leaf! they would 

 have been confiderably diminished ; but no diminution 

 is obfervable, except in thofe lakes, from which human 

 induftry has diverted the rivers and torrents which dif- 

 charged themfelves into them, as in thofe of the vale of 

 Mexico. We have feen and obferved the five principal 

 lakes of New Spain, which are thofe of Tezcuco, Chal- 

 co, Cuifco, Pazcuaro, and Chapalla, and are confident 

 that they have not been formed; nor are preferved, but 

 by plentiful rain-waters, rivers, and fountains. All the 

 world is acquainted, that no rains are more copious and 

 violent, nor any rivers fo great, as thofe of America. 

 Why then invent inundations while we have caufes at 

 hand more natural and certain ? If the lakes were proofs 

 of an inundation, we ought rather to believe it to have 

 happened in the old than in the new continent, becaufe 

 all the lakes of America, including even thofe of Canada, 

 which are the largeft, are not comparable to the Black, 

 White, Baltic, and Cafpian feas, which though vulgar- 

 ly called feas, are, however, according to Buffon him- 

 felf, true lakes, formed by rivers which pour into them. 

 If to thofe we add the lakes of Lemano, Onega, Ple/kow, 

 and many others, extremely large, of Ruffia, Tartary, 

 and other countries (p), we will foon difcover how much 



they, 



Bomare enumerates thirty-eight lakes in the cantons of Switzerland, 

 and fays, that into that of Harlem veffels of great fize enter. The lake of 

 Aral in Tartary has, according to the fame author, a hundred leagues of length 

 and fifty of breadth. 



