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nearest resort of the Whale, it follows that the ocean must once have covered the country, at least as high up as Williamsburg.

Again, in digging several wells lately in this town, the teeth of Sharks were found from sixty to ninety or an hundred feet below the surface of the earth. The probability is that these teeth were deposited by the Shark itself; and as this fish is never known to infest very shallow streams, the conclusion is clear that this whole country has once been buried under several fathoms of water. At all events, these teeth must.be considered as ascertaining what was once the surface of the earth here; which surface is very little higher than that of James River. Now if it be considered that there has been no perceptible difference wrought in the figure or elevation of

scanty soil on the surface of a lava, there must have been more than that space of time betwixt each of the eruptions which have formed these strata. But what shall we say of a pit they sunk near to Jaci of a great depth. They pierced through seven distinct lavas, one under the other, the surfaces of which were parallel, and most of them covered with a thick bed of rich earth. Now, savs he, the eruption which formed the lowest of these lavas, if we may be allowed to reason from analogy, must have flowed from the moun-. tain at least 14,000 years ago." Vol. 1, Letter 7. Whereas the computation inferred, but without doubt inaccurately, from the Pentateuch, makes the earth itself only between 5 and 6000 year old.

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the coast, nor, consequently, in the precipitation of the interior streams since the earliest recorded discovery of Virginia, which was two hundred years ago, it will follow, that James River must for many hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, been running, at least here, with a very rapid, headlong current; the friction whereof must certainly have rendered the channel much deeper than it was at the time of the deposition of these teeth. The result is clear, that the surface of the stream, which, even now, after all this friction and consequent depression, is so nearly on a level with the scite of the Shark's teeth, must, originally, have been much higher. I take this to be an irrefragable proof, that the land here, was then, inundated; and as there is no ground between this and the Atlantic, higher than that on which Richmond is built, it seems to me indisputably certain, that the whole of this beautiful country was once covered with a dreary waste of water.*

An elegant and well informed writer on the theory of the earth, under the signature of "An Enquirer," whose remarks were suggested by the perusal of this letter of the British Spy, observes that sea shells and other marine substances are found in every explored part of the world, "on the loftiest mountains of Europe and the still loftier Andes of South America." As the British Spy was not writing a regular and elab›rate treatise on the origin of the earth, he did not deem it material to congregate all the facts which have been seen, and supposed, in relation

To what curious and interesting reflections does this subject lead us! Over this hill on which I am now sitting and writing at my ease, and from which I look with delight, on the landscape, that smiles around me....over this hill and over this landscape, the billows of the ocean have roli. ed in wild and dreadful fury, while the Leviathan, the Whale and all the monsters of the deep, have disported themselves amid the fearful tempest.

Where was then the shore of the ocean ?..... From this place, for eighty miles to the westward, the ascent of the country is very gradual; and even up to the Blue Ridge, marine shells and other phenomena are found, which demonstrate that that country too, has been visited by the ocean..... How then has it emerged? Has it been by

to this subject. Whether the British Spy is to be considered as an Englishman of rank on a tour through America, and writing the above letter in Richmond to his friend in London; or whether he is to be considered as one of our own citizens, disposed to entertain the people of Richmond and its vicinity with a light and amusing speculation on the origin of their country," in either instance it was both more natural and more interesting that the speculation should appear to have grown out of recent facts discovered in their own town or neighborhood, and with which they are all supposed to be conversant, than on distant and controvertible facts, which, it was not important to the enquiry, whether they knew or believed, or not.

a sudden convulsion? Certainly not. No ch serving man, who has ever travelled from the Blue Ridge to the Atlantic can doubt that this emersion has been effected by very slow gradations. For as you advance to the east, the proofs of the former submersion of the country thicken upon you. On the shores of York river, the bones of Whales abound; and I have been not a little amused in walking on the sand beach of that river during the recess of the tide, and looking up at the high cliff or bank above me, to observe strata of sea shells not yet calcined, like those which lay on the beach under my feet, interspersed with strata of earth (the joint result no doubt of sand and putrid vegetables) exhibiting at once a sample of the manner in which the adjacent soil had been formed, and proof of the comparatively recent desertion of the waters.

Upon the whole, every thing here tends to confirm the ingenious theory of Mr. Buffon; that the eastern coasts of continents are enlarged by the perpetual revolution of the earth from west to east, which has the obvious tendency to conglomerate the loose sands of the sea on the eas. tern coast; while the tides of the ocean, drawn from east to west, against the revolving earth, contribute to aid the process, and hasten the alJuvion. But admitting the Abbe Raynal's idea, that America is a far younger country than cither of the other continents, or in other words, that America has emerged long since their formation, how did it happen that the materials which compose this continent, were not accumulated on the castern coast of Asia ?.... Was it, that the

present mountains of America, then protuberán ces on the bed of the ocean, intercepted a part of the passing sands which would otherwise have been washed on the Asiatic shore, and thus became the rudiments of this vast continent? If so, America is under much greater obligations to her barren mountains, than she has hitherto supposed.

But while Mr. Buffon's theory accounts very handsomely for the enlargement of the eastern coast, it offers no kind of reason for any extension of the western; on the contrary, the very causes assigned to supply the addition to the eastern, seem at first view, to threaten a diminution of the western coast. Accordingly, Mr. Buffon, we see, has adopted also the latter idea; and in the constant abluvion from the western coast of one continent, has found a perennial source of materials for the eastern coast of that which lies behind it. This last idea, however, by no means quadrates with the hypothesis that the mountains of America formed the original stamina of the continent; for on the latter supposition, the mountains themselves would constitute the western coast; since Mr. Buffon's theory precludes the idea of any accession in that quarter. Put the mountains do not constitute the western coast. On the contrary there is a wider extent of country between the great mountains in North America, and the Pacific or the Northern oceans, than there is between the same mountains and the Atlantic ocean. Mr. Buffon's cheory, therefore, however rational as to the easə vern, becomes defective, as he presses it, in rela

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