terials of those mountains are every where urged through the valleys,
by the force of running water. The soil, which is produced in the
destruction of the solid earth, is gradually travelled by the moving
water, but is constantly supplying vegetation with its necessary aid.
This travelled soil is at last deposited upon the coast, where it forms
most fertile countries. But the billows of the ocean agitate the loose
materials upon the shore, and wear away the coast, with the endless
repetitions of this act of power, or this imparted force. Thus the
continent of our earth, sapped in its foundation, is carried away into
the deep, and sunk again at the bottom of the sea, from whence it had
originated.

We are thus led to see a circulation in the matter of this globe, and a
system of beautiful economy in the works of nature. This earth, like the
body of an animal, is wasted at the same time that it is repaired. It
has a state of growth and augmentation; it has another state, which is
that of diminution and decay. This world is thus destroyed in one part,
but it is renewed in another; and the operations by which this world is
thus constantly renewed, are as evident to the scientific eye, as are
those in which it is necessarily destroyed. The marks of the internal
fire, by which the rocks, beneath the sea are hardened, and by which
the land is produced above the surface of the sea, have nothing in them
which is doubtful or ambiguous. The destroying operations again, though
placed within the reach of our examination, and evident almost to every
observer, are no more acknowledged by mankind, than is that system of
renovation which philosophy alone discovers.

It is only in science that any question concerning the origin and end of
things is formed; and it is in science only that the resolution of those
questions is to be attained. The natural operations of this globe, by
which the size and shape of our land are changed, are so slow as to be
altogether imperceptible to men who are employed in pursuing the various
occupations of life and literature. We must not ask the industrious
inhabitant, for the end or origin of this earth: he sees the present,
and he looks no farther into the works of time than his experience can
supply his reason. We must not ask the statesman, who looks into the
history of time past, for the rise and fall of empires; he proceeds upon
the idea of a stationary earth, and most justly has respect to nothing
bu