dener burns at the end of Autumn the refuse of his garden.

We find lavas indeed in the interior of countries ; but a proof that they are indebted to the water for their original is this, that the volcanos which produced them became extinct whenever the waters failed them. These volcanos were kindled, like those which still subsist, by vegetable and animal fermentations with which the Earth was covered after the Deluge, when the spoils of so many forests, and of so many animals, whose trunks and bones are still found in our quarries, floated on the surface of the Ocean, and formed prodigious deposits, when the currents accumulated in the cavities of the mountains. It cannot be doubted that in this state they caught fire by the effect of fermentation merely, just as we see stacks of damp hay catch fire in our meadows. It is impossible to call in question these ancient conflagrations, the traditions of which are preserved in Antiquity, and which immediately follow those of the Deluge. In the ancient Mythology, the history of the serpent Python, produced by the corruption of the waters, and that of Phaeton, who set the world on fire, immediately follow the history of Philemon and Baucis,* escaped from the waters of the Deluge, and are allegories of the pestilence, and of the vol. canos, which were the first results of the general dissolution of animals and vegetables.

All that now remains is to refute the opinion of those who maintain that the Earth is à secretion from the Sun. The chief arguments by which they sup.

*The Author undoubtedly means Deucalion and Pyrrha.

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and vitrified substances (if it be possible for us to have an idea of the substances from which light issues), seeing some of our terrestrial Elements, such as Water and Fire, are absolutely incompatible. But I shall confine myself to the refrigeration ascribed to the Earth, because the evidence on which this opinion rests is level to the comprehension of all men, and is of importance to their security.

If the Earth is getting colder and colder, the Sun, from which it is said to have been separated, must be getting cold in proportion; and the mutual diminution of the heat in these two Globes must become perceptible in a course of ages, at least on the surface of the Earth, in the evaporations of the Seas, in the diminution of rains, and especially in the successive destruction of a great number of plants, which are killed every day merely from the diminution of only a few degrees of heat, when the Climate is changed upon them. Not a single plant, however, has been lost of all those which were known to Circé, the most ancient of Botanists, whose herbal Homer has in some measure preserved for us. The plants celebrated in song by Orpheus, and their virtues, subsist to this day. There is not even a single one which has lost any thing of its ancient attitude. The jealous Clytia still turns towards the Sun; and the beautiful son of Liriope, Narcissus, continues to admire himself on the brink of the fountain.

Such are the testimonies adduced from the vegetable kingdom, respecting the uniformity and constancy of the temperature of the Globe; let us examine those of the Human Race. There are some of the

inhabitants

inhabitants of Switzerland, it is alleged, who have perceived a progressive accumulation of the ices on their mountains. I could oppose to this evidence that of the modern Observers, who, in the view of ingratiating themselves with the Princes of the North, pretend, with as little foundation, that the cold is diminishing there, because these Princes have thought proper to cut down the forests of their States; but I shall adhere to the testimony of the Ancients, who could not possibly intend to flatter any one on a subject of this nature.

If the refrigeration of the Earth is perceptible in the life of one man, it must be much more so in the life of Mankind: now all the temperatures described by the most ancient Historians, as that of Germany by Tacitus, of Gaul by Cesar, of Greece by Plutarch, of Thrace by Xenophon, are precisely the same at this day, as they were at the time when those several Historians wrote. The Book of Job the Arabian, which there is reason to believe is more ancient than the Writings of Moses, and which contains views of Nature much more profound than is generally imagined, views, the most common whereof were unknown to us two centuries ago, makes frequent mention of the falling of the snows in that country, that is, toward the thirtieth degree of North Latitude. Mount Lebanon, from the remotest antiquity, bears the Arabian name of Liban, which signifies white, on account of the snows with which it's summit is covered all the year round. Homer relates that it snowed in Ithaca when Ulysses arrived there, which obliged him to borrow a cloak of the good Eumeus.

I have likewise remarked there a bed of flints completely amalgamated, and forming a single table, the section of which was perceptibly about one inch thick by more than thirty feet in length. It's depth in the cliff I did not ascertain; but with a little art it might be detached and fashioned into the most superb agate table in the world. Wherever these marles and flints are found, shells are likewise found in great quantities, so that as marle has been evidently formed of their wreck, it appears to me extremely probable that the flints have been composed of the very substance of the fishes which were there inclosed.

This opinion will appear less extraordinary, if we observe that many of the cornes d'ammon, and ofsingleshelled fossils, which from their form have resisted the pressure of the ground, and not being compressed by it, have not ejected, like the double-shelled, the animal matter which they contained, but exhibit it within them under the form of crystals, with which they are usually filled, whereas the two-shelled are totally destitute of it.

The animal substances of these last, I presume, confounded with their crushed fragments, have formed the different coloured pastes of marble, and have communicated to them the hardness and polish of which these marbles are susceptible. This substance presents itself even in shell-fish when alive, with the characters of agate, as may be seen in several kinds of mother-of-pearl, and among others, in the half transparent, and very hard knob, which terminates what is called the harpe. Finally, this stony substance is found besides in land animals; for I have

seen

STUDY FIFTH.

REPLY TO THE OBJECTIONS AGAINST PROVIDENCE, FOUNDED ON THE DISORDERS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM.

TH

'HE Earth is, say the Objectors, a garden very injudiciously laid out. Men of wit, who never travelled, have amused themselves with painting it, when proceeding from the hand of Nature, as if the giants had been a fighting in it. They represent it's rivers flowing at random; it's morasses as vast collections of mud; the trees of it's, forests turned upside down; it's plains buried under rocks, or overspread with briars or thorns; all it's high ways rendered unpassable; all it's culture the puny efforts of human genius. Such representations, though picturesque, have, I acknowledge, sometimes afflicted me, because they inspired me with distrust of the AUTHOR of Nature. To no purpose could it be supposed that in other respects He had loaded Man with benefits; one of our first and most pressing necessities had been overlooked, if He had neglected to care for our habitation.

The inundations of rivers, such as those of the Amazon, of the Oroonoko, and a great many others, VOL. I.

Q

are