rayante par les consequences
qu'elle presente, et qui peut influer sur le systeme general du monde,
sera etendue un jour dans un autre memoire, ou je decrirai d'anciens
cours de rivieres de la France, qui n'existent plus. J'espere fair voir
alors, appuye par les faits que me fournira l'histoire, que les rivieres
et les fleuves actuels ont ete plus volumineux qu'ils ne le sont
maintenant, et qu'il existoit en France un grande nombre de vastes lacs,
comme dans l'Amerique Septentrionale, et dont a peine il nous reste des
traces aujourd-hui."

This opinion of M. Monnet, concerning the diminution of water upon the
earth, does not follow necessarily from those appearances which he has
mentioned. The surface of the earth is certainly changed by the gradual
operations of the running water, and it may not be unfrequent, perhaps,
to find a small stream of water in places where a greater stream had
formerly run; this will naturally happen upon many occasions, as well
as the opposite, by the changes which are produced upon the form of
the surface. Likewise the conversion of lakes into plains is a natural
operation of the globe, or a consequence of the degradation of the
elevated surface of the earth, without there being any reason to suppose
that the general quantity of running water upon the land diminishes,
or that the boundaries of the various seas are suffering any permanent
removal.

Whether we examine the Alps in the Old World, or the Andes in the New,
we always find the evidence of this proposition, That the exposed parts
of the solid earth are decaying and degraded; that these materials are
hauled from the heights to be travelled by the waters over the surface
of the earth; and that the surface of the earth is perpetually changing,
in having materials moved from one place and deposited in another. But
these changes follow rules, which we may investigate; and, by reasoning
according to those rules or general laws, upon the present state of
things, we may see the operation of those active principles or physical
causes in very remote periods of this mundane system, and foresee future
changes in the endless progress of time, by which there is, for every
particular part, a succession of decay and renovation.

CHAP. XIII.

_The same Subject continued._

The Chevalier de Dolomieu, in his most indefatigable search after
natural history and volcanic productions, has given us the description
of some observations which are m