Far beyond the Ohio, in piercing the earth for water, the stumps of trees, bearing the most evident impressions of the axe, and on one of them the rust of consumed iron, have been discovered between ninety and an hundred feet below the present surface of the earth. This is a proof, by the bye, not only that this immense depth of soil has been accumulated in that quarter; but that, that new country, as the inhabitants of the Atlantick States call it, is, indeed a very ancient one, and that North America has undergone more revolutions in point of civilization than have heretofore been thought of, either by the European or American Philosophers. That part of this continent, which borders on the western ocean being almost entirely. unknown, it is impossible to say whether it exhibits the same evidence of emersion which is found here. M'Kenzie, however, the only traveller who has penetrated through this wild forest, records a curious tradition among some of the western tribes of Indians : to wit, that the world was once covered with water. The tradition is embellished as usual, with a number of very highly poetical fictions. The fact, which I suppose to be couched under it, is, the ancient submersion of that part of the continent; which certainly looks much more like a world, than the petty territory that was inundated by Deucalion's flood. If I remember aright, for I cannot

immediately refer to the book, Stith in his history of Virginia, has recorded similar tra→ ditions among the Atlantick tribes of Indians. I have no doubt that if McKenzie had been as well qualified for scientifick research, as he was undoubtedly honest, firm and persevering, it would have been in his power to have thrown great lights on this subject, as it relates to the western country.

For my own part, while I believe the present mountains of America to have constituted the original stamina of the continent, I believe, at the same time, the western as well as the eastern country to be the effect of alluvion; produced too by the same causes; the rotation of the earth, and the planetary attraction of the ocean. The conception of this will be easy and simple, if, instead of confounding the mind, by a wide view of the whole continent as it now stands, we carry back our imagination to the time of its birth, and suppose some one of the highest pinnacles of the Blue Ridge to have just emerged above the surface of the sea. Now whether the rolling of the earth to the east give to the ocean, which floats loosely upon its bosom, an actual counter current, to the west, which is, occasionally, further accelerated by the motion of the tides in that direction, or whether this be not the case, still to our newly emerged pinnacle, which is whirled by the earth's motion, through the waters of the

deep, the consequences will be the same as if there were this actual and strong current. For while the waters will be continually accumulated on the eastern coast of this pinnacle, it is obvious that on the western coast (protected as it would be, from the current, by the newly riven earth) the waters will always be comparatively low and calm. The result is clear. The sands, borne along by the ocean's current over the northern and southern extremities of this pinnacle, will always have a tendency to settle in the calm behind it ; and thus, by perpetual accumulations, from a western coast, more rapidly perhaps than an eastern one; as we may see in miniature by the capes and shallows, collected by the still water, on each side, at the mouths of creeks, or below rocks, in the rapids of a river.

After this new born point of earth had gained some degree of elevation, it is probable that successive coats of vegetation, according to Dr. Darwin's idea, springing up, then falling and dying on the earth, paid an annual tribute to the infant continent, while such rain as fell upon it, bore down a part of its substance and assisted perpetually in the enlargement of its area.

It is curious that the arrangement of the mountains both in North and South America, as well as the shape of the two continents, combines to strengthen the present theory.

D

For the mountains, as you will perceive on inspecting your maps, run, in chains from north to south; thus opposing the widest possible barrier to the sands, as they roll from east to west. The shape of the continents is just that which would naturally be expected from such an origin; that is, they lie along, collaterally, with the mountains. As far north as the country is well known, these ranges of mountains are observed; and it is remarkable that as soon as the Cordilleras terminate in the south, the continent of South America ends; where they terminate in the north, the continent dwindles to a narrow isthmus.

Assuming this theory as correct, it is amusing to observe the conclusions to which it will lead us.

As the country is supposed to have been formed by gradual accumulations, and as these accumulations were most probably equal or nearly so in every part, it follows that, broken as this country is, in hills and dales, it has assumed no new appearance by its emersion; but that the figure of the earth's surface is the same throughout, as well where it is now covered by the waters of the ocean, as where it has been already denudated. So that Mr. Boyle's mountains in the sea, cease to have any thing wonderful in them.

Connected with this, it is not an improbable conclusion, that new continents, and islands are now forming on the bed of the ocean. Perhaps at some future day, land, may emerge in the neighbourhood of the An tarctick circle, which by progressive accumulations and a consequent increase of weight may keep a juster balance between the poles, and produce a material difference in our astronomical relations. The navigators of that day will be as successful in their discoveries in the south seas, as Columbus was heretofore in the northern. For there can be little doubt that there has been a time when Columbus, if he had lived, would have found his reasonings, on the balance of the earth, fallacious; and would have sought these seas for a continent, as much in vain, as Drake, Anson, Cooke and others, encouraged perhaps by similar reasoning, have since sought the ocean in the south.

If Mr. Buffon's notion be correct, that the eastern coast of one continent is perpetually feeding on the western coast of that which lies before it, the conclusion is inevitable, that the present materials of Europe and Africa and Asia in succession, will, at some future day, compose the continents of North and South America, while the latter thrown on the Asiatic shore, will again make a part, and in time, the whole of that continent to which, by some philosophers, they are sup