AMSTERDAM ISLAND. 153 
islands have been thrown up in the Archipelago. In l638, 
an island about the size of Amsterdam was thrown up 
among the Azores or Western Islands ; and in 1757, in the 
same cluster near that called St. George, eighteen small 
islands appeared above the surface of the sea, after a tre- 
mendous and destructive earthquake which continued eight 
days; but they gradually subsided, and at last altogether dis- 
appeared ; that part of the sea vdiere they rose being, how- 
ever, very materially decreased in the depth of water. 
Since then it admits of proof that islands and mountains do 
spring up from time to time, and no grounds can be produced 
to shew that the smallest hill has been left uncovered by the 
retreat of the ocean, an ingenious theorist might employ this 
argument with success to prove that the sea, in the lapse of 
ages, may totally disappear within the crust of the earth, 
which would thus revert to the egg of the ancient philo- 
sophers ; whose shell again bursting might cause a new deluge 
and a new creation. What changes may happen in eternity 
of duration and infinity of space, equally incomprehensible 
to the mind of man, are hidden, no doubt for wise and good 
purposes, from finite beings ; but reason and observation, in- 
dependent of sacred or profane historj^, clearly point out that 
the earth we inhabit has undergone, and is continually under- 
going, a great variety of changes ; but when or in what manner 
the most important of them have been brought about, we must 
either be content with what the sacred writings have com- 
municated on the subject, attributing them to an omnipotent 
and preternatural cause, or continue to amuse ourselves with 
vague conjectures ; for neither the theory of the Neptunists 
