gold mine, they found a ship on which were many characters, very different from ours. Strabo also relates, in his first book, that the wrecks of ships have been found 375 miles from the sea.

148. Dr. Plott, in his Natural History of Staffordshire, relates a story, that the mast of a ship, with a pulley hanging to it, was found in one of the Greenland mountains. Is it to be supposed that those ships, which have been found beneath the surface of the earth, were antediluvian ships? If they were (and mankind knew the use of ships before the flood), it is not probable that all mankind, except Noah and his family, would have been drowned by a deluge of

waters.

Is it not more probable, that violent earthquakes since the deluge have been the means of swallowing up these ships? but the sea must, at that time, have covered that part of the land where they have been found.

149. In the year 1746, Calloa, a sea-port town in Peru, was violently shaken by an earthquake, and of 5000 inhabitants only 200 were saved. The sea rolled in upon the town in mountainous waves; ships of burden were conveyed over the garrison walls; and one ship, which arrived from Chili the preceding day, was conveyed to the foot of the mountains, and left on dry ground.

On the 7th day of June, 1692, the town of Port Royal, in Jamaica, was in two minutes totally destroyed by an earthquake: many ships were also swallowed up.

150. The earthquake which visited Sicily in 1693, shook the whole island, and extended to Naples and Malta; the city of Catania was destroyed, with 18,000 inhabitants: fifty-four cities and towns, besides many villages, were either greatly injured or totally destroyed. The city of Catania was rebuilt, and is now again in ruins by the late earthquakes that shook all Sicily. And, on the first of November,

1755, Lisbon in Portugal was also destroyed by an earthquake: many ships in the harbour were also swallowed up, only their masts appearing above water: the sea suddenly rolled in like a mountain, ships were driven from their moorings, and tossed about with great violence. The same day that Lisbon was destroyed, Cadiz was violently shaken by an earthquake; and the inhabitants were yet more. alarmed at the appearance of a wave coming towards the town at least sixty feet higher than common: it beat in the breast-work of the walls, and carried pieces of eight or ten tons weight forty or fifty yards from the wall, and passed over a parapet sixty feet above the ordinary level of the water.

St. Ubes, a sea-port town twenty miles south of Lisbon, was entirely swallowed up by the repeated shocks of this earthquake: in Africa, near Morocco, the earth opened and swallowed up a village with 8 or 10,000 inhabitants; Sallee and Tangiers also suffered greatly by an inundation of waters. The same earthquake was felt all over Spain: at Ayomonte, near where the Guadiana falls into the bay of Cadiz, the water came on in vast mountains, and laid under water all the coasts of the islands adjacent. The waters in many parts of Britain were greatly agitated at the same time. At three quarters after six in the evening, on the same day that Lisbon was sunk, and about the time of two hours' ebb of the tide, a great body of water rushed up in Glamorganshire in Wales, accompanied with great noise, and in such a quantity that it floated two vessels of 200 tons burden each.

At Kinsale, in Ireland, a great body of water rushed with such violence into the harbour, that it drove two vessels from their moorings.

In Holland, the agitations were more remarkable: at Alphen, on the Rhine, the waters were agitated to such a violent degree, that buoys were broken from their chains, large vessels snapped their cables, smaller ones were thrown out of the water, upon the land, and others lying on land were set afloat. This destructive earthquake extended over a tract of land of four millions of square miles.

151. History records a number of instances of great inundations of the sea on the land by earthquakes:

the bottom of the sea is first elevated by means of subterraneous fires before the elastic vapours can find a vent; and the sea, of consequence, must flow over the land, the depth in proportion to the elevation of the bottom of the sea.

The master of an American vessel in north latitude 25°, at the time of the great earthquake, saw, from his cabin window, land about a mile from his ship; but, coming upon deck, the land was no more to be seen; and he perceived a violent current cross the ship's lay to the leeward. In about a minute this current returned with great impetuosity; and, at a league distance, he saw three craggy rocks throwing up water of various colours resembling fire; the phenomenon in about two minutes ended in a black cloud, which ascended very heavily after it had risen above the horizon no rocks - were to be seen. No doubt, but many ships have been driven far inland, and swallowed up by the earthquakes that followed the inundations of the sea, some of which, in course of time, may be accidentally discovered.

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CHAPTER VII.

OUTLINES OF ANIMATED NATURE.

SECTION I.

INTRODUCTION.

152. SEVERAL scientific and ingenious arrangements of the animal kingdom into classes, orders, genera, and species, have been successively adopted; that of Monsieur Cuvier, the French anatomist, possesses a high degree of merit. But though his arrangement evinces great anatomical precision, and the highest philosophical knowledge of animals, yet, to a general reader, it has a complicated and forbidding appearance, and is less attractive than the

more simple arrangement of Linnæus, which divides the animal kingdom into six classes; mammalia, aves, amphibia, pisces, insecta, vermes, or such as suckle their young; birds; creatures living equally on land, or in the water; fishes; insects; and worms. Each of these classes is subdivided into orders, genera, species, and varieties of those species.

Body.

See thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing.

153. The class mammalia, consists of such animals as produce living offspring, and nourish their young with milk supplied from their own bodies; it comprises both the quadrupeds and whales.

Their head is the seat of the principal organs of sense, the mouth, the nose, the eyes, and ears.

154. Touching or feeling. The outside of the skin is covered with a thin pellicle, called the epidermis, cuticle, or scarfskin. Under the cuticle, is the rete mucosum. In negroes, this substance is black, in Europeans, white, brown, or yellow. The cutis vera, or the skin, is a substance made up of fibres closely connected with each other, and running in

various directions, being composed of the extremities of numerous vessels and nerves. The papilla of the fingers or inside of the hand, may become erect or elevated, and being gently pressed against a tangible body, receive an impression which is conveyed to the brain, and is called touch. Spiders, flies, and ants, have this sense in the greatest perfection.

155. Tasting. The tongue is covered with two membranes ; the external is thick and rugged, especially in quadrupeds; the internal membrane is thin and soft, and upon it appear papillæ, or small elevations, like the tops of the small horns of snails. These papillæ are composed of the extremities of the nerves of the tongue, and piercing the external membrane, are constantly affected by those qualities in bodies, which have their tastes excited in the mind by means of these nervous papillæ, which are the immediate organ of tasting. This organ bears a strong analogy to the sense of touch.

156. Hearing. The undulations of the atmosphere, excited by the vibrations of sonorous bodies, are collected in the external ear and auditory passage, as in the hearing trumpet, and are conveyed to the membrana tympani, or drum, which they cause to vibrate. The effect is transmitted through the small bones, to the watery fluid that fills the internal ear, in which the delicate filaments of the auditory nerve float, and by this nerve the sensation is conveyed to the brain. But it is remarkable how nicely is the ear constructed in various animals; in man its position and form are admirably contrived for his erect posture; in quadrupeds we see it large, susceptible of easy motion, as when the horse lays his ears back or points them forward; in the mole it is lodged deep in the head.

The structure of the ear is also remarkable, for it is so contrived and tunnelled that it may not only catch sounds but prevent the more furious undulations of the air from injuring the interior membrane. And to prevent insects from lodging within its cavity, as well as to keep it moist and in tune, it is supplied with a bitter nauseous wax.

157. Smelling. The cavity of the nose is divided into two parts, called the nostrils, by a partition, of which the upper part is bony, and the lower cartilaginous. The upper part of the cavity is covered with a thick glandulous membrane, above which the olfactory nerve is finely branched out and spread over the membrane of the spongy bones of the nose, and other sinuous cavities of the nostrils. The odorous effluvia of bodies being disseminated in the atmosphere, the latter fluid passes through the nose in respiration, and the odorous par,