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The gradual dissemination of mankind and of LETTER animals, must have been always governed by the state of each locality.

One consequence of this inundated state of many parts of the coast would be, that marine plants would overspread its surface below the waters, and that its first inhabitants, where they prevailed, would be marine animals. Shell-fish would multiply on the banks and ground beneath. Fish would float, live and die in the moving streams above; while every summer, as the mountain ices melted and the spring rains descended, the rivers would bring currents of disintegrated hills and of muddy soil, to deposit on the beds over which they should flow; and thus, every year, or at frequent intervals, forming new layers of strata from the materials they would carry with them. These facts will account for rocky masses and strata with no fossil remains, but those of marine

about the regions of Argos and Mycena; for in the Trojan times, the regions about Argos being in a watery state could maintain but few; whereas Mycena was better off in this respect, and therefore had the higher honor; but now, its land has altogether dried up and become sterile. What was then barren from its laky state, has now become productive.

What has happened in this district, which is small, has also occurred in extensive places and in whole regions, for many parts which were formerly under water are now become continents and the contrary. In many places the sea has come upon the land.' Arist. Meteor. 368. He remarks this change in Egypt. The watery places drying by degrees, the neighbouring districts became inhabited. We say that the Egyptians are the most ancient of men, but all their region appears to have been made, and to be the waste of the river.' Ib.

'The places near the Red Sea sufficiently show this. One of their Kings tried to break thro the Isthmus here. Sesostris is said to have been the first of the ancients who tried this, but he found the sea higher than the land. Hence it is manifest that all these things were one continued sea. Wherefore it appears that the parts about Libya, the Ammonian region, is lower and more hollow.' Ib.

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LETTER animals and plants. As long as the waters any where covered the surface, these only could live and multiply in them, and, therefore, all the earliest relics of organized life must have been, and are found now to be, of this description. It was not until the ground became divested of the superincumbent fluid, that quadrupeds could occupy, or that land-vegetation could be diffused. These would be the next occupants and the only ones, until human colonizations penetrated into the regions. But it is every where found, that the animal classes diffuse themselves more rapidly than the human race, whom plants and forests always precede.

The next series of remains, after the marine, will, therefore, be of quadrupeds and dry-ground plants and trees. Bones of mankind will be rare; and rarer from the habit of many tribes of burning their dead. Even where this custom did not prevail, the social habit of congregating in towns, and of being buried in some general cemetery, would prevent any human fossils from appearing in the rocks and strata of the earth, or any where but in close vicinity to these frequented cities.

But we must not mistake the local appearances of only the simple marine plants and animals, as evidences that no other then existed on the earth; or when the fossil remains of quadrupeds solely are found, infer that Man had not then been created. His absence proves that his population had not spread into those parts, where he has left no relics of his presence; but it proves no more-non-diffusion is not non-existence.23

23 On the main principle of this letter, I quote with much pleasure a fine passage of the Rev. A. Sedgwick's concluding address to the British

British Association of Cambridge in 1833:— There is in the intellect of man an appetency for the discovery of General Truth; and by this appetency, in subordination to the capacities of his mind, has he been led on to the discovery of general laws; and thus, his soul has been fitted to reflect back upon the world a portion of the counsels of his Creator. If I have said that physical phenomena, unless connected with the ideas of order and of law, are of little worth, I may further say, that an intellectual grasp of material laws of the highest order has no moral worth, except it be combined with another movement of the mind, raising it to the perception of an intelligent FIRST CAUSE. It is by help of this last movement that Nature's language is comprehended; that her laws become pregnant with meaning; that material phenomena are instinct with life; that all moral and material changes become linked together; and that Truth, under whatever forms she may present herself, seems to have but One essential substance.' Report Brit. Assoc. 1833, p. xxx.

LETTER

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LETTER XXIII.

THE NATURAL SCENERY OF THE EARTH MADE TO BE EVERY
WHERE BEAUTIFUL AND INTERESTING-INSTANCES OF ITS
EFFECT ON VARIOUS MINDS IN THE DIFFERENT REGIONS OF
THE WORLD.

MY DEAR SON,

LETTER OUR considerations on the surface which was established at the Deluge, for the subsistence and habitation of mankind and of the rest of animated nature, have been directed to the effects and utilities which have been derived from it, in producing and maintaining the present course of nature, the social economy of mankind, and their general convenience and comfort. But as we contemplate the aspect of all that surrounds us, we can read most legibly in the expanded Volume of Nature before us, that another principle of the Divine mind has been in liberal activity for our benefit; and this is that affectionate regard for His human race, which the Scriptures term the love of God for man, which goes far beyond what we term reasoning or philosophic philanthropy, or that moral principle which contents itself with seeking the welfare of its human objects. He has not been satisfied with doing us good, and providing largely for our necessities and well-being; His feeling towards us has been more kind and endearing. He has been as solicitous to give us pleasure in his various creations, as well as food, comfort and safety. He has, therefore, enlarged His plan and contrivances, to add multiplied and diversified means of easy and continual enjoyment, beyond our

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bodily gratifications; purely to excite pleasurable LETTER sensation in us, and to make us happy, while He sustained and blessed us with all that our daily wants require.

In the former letters, the operation of this principle of the Divine love for mankind, was brought to your notice, in the remarks on the floral beauties of creation, and on the rich fruits which His vegetable bounty has provided so numerously for us. Its activity is not less visible in His arrangements, configuration and investiture of the present surface of our earth. He has so managed these dispositions of it, that the natural scenery, which it presents to us, is in every region expanding around us a continual succession of visual beauties, which excite the mind in every country to an exhilarating delight. He has so shaped and distributed the masses, rocks, hills, valleys, mountains and plains of our earth, and so clothed them with plants and trees, that their appearances at due intervals, and in ever-varying succession, are always cheering and interesting to the human eye.

It is by the deliberate and skilful placing and forming them into the fit outlines and figures, and with the due mutual relations, colors and contrasts, that they raise within us as we approach them, those intellectual emotions, to which we attach the terms sublime and beautiful, picturesque and charming, wild, interesting and elegant, with many other epithets, that mark the gladdening sensations and pleasing sympathies, which we experience from them. Every one feels effects of this sort, who looks around him at the natural scenery of the country in which he resides, or through which he may be travelling. Whatever be the region and quarter of the globe that

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