315 



running waters furnishes phenomena equally 

 extraordinary in the ancient world, but that 

 these phenomena from their littleness have less 

 struck the imagination of travellers. When 

 immense rivers may be considered as composed 

 of several parallel furrows # of unequal depth ; 

 when these rivers are not enclosed in valleys ; 

 and when the interior of a great continent is as 

 flat as the shores of the sea with us ; the ramifi- 

 cations, the bifurcations, and the interlacings in 

 the form of net work, must be infinitely multi- 

 plied. From what we know of the equilibrium 

 of the seas, I cannot think, that the New World 

 issued from the waters later than the Old ; and 

 that organic life is there younger, or more re- 

 cent : but, without admitting oppositions be- 

 tween the two hemispheres of the same planet, 

 we may conceive, that in the hemisphere most 

 abundant in waters the different systems of 

 rivers required more time, to separate them- 

 selves from one another, and establish their 

 complete independance. The deposites of mud, 

 which are formed wherever the running waters 

 lose somewhat of their swiftness, contribute no 

 doubt to raise the beds of the great confluent 



* See my memoir on the causes of the bifurcations of 

 rivers, in the Journal of the Royal Polytechnic School, vol. iv, 

 65. 



