ess indicate his power and goodness
than that which we now inhabit. How readily, then, can imagination
fashion out the future destiny of our globe, on the supposition that the
conflagration by which its presently inhabited portions are expected to
be destroyed, shall not be so complete as to annihilate it from the
universe! Or, believing what is usually understood, by that event, on
the authority of scripture, how clearly can reason deduce from present
appearances certain minor, but nevertheless immense, changes, which it
may undergo previous to this final dissolution! But the reader, it is
probable, will not chuse to venture on so terrific an excursion, and
there is a motive for caution with respect to it, with which it may not
be amiss to apprise the too zealous enquirer. The fact is, that none of
the causes which we know to be now operating on our globe, seem at all
adequate to account for all the changes it has already undergone. We
may, therefore, very fairly infer, that an indefinite allowance must be
granted to exterior interference of some sort or other, the agency of
which may altogether subvert whatever is now known to exist.--See
Cuvier's Essay, lately published at Edinburgh.--E.]

There were no traces of inhabitants having ever been here, if we except
a small piece of a canoe that was found upon the beach, which, probably,
may have drifted from some other island. But, what is pretty
extraordinary, we saw several small brown rats on this spot, a
circumstance, perhaps, difficult to account for, unless we allow that
they were imported in the canoe of which we saw the remains.

After the boats were laden I returned on board, leaving Mr Gore, with a
party, to pass the night on shore, in order to be ready to go to work
early the next morning.

That day, being the 15th, was accordingly spent as the preceding one had
been, in collecting and bringing on board food for the cattle,
consisting chiefly of palm-cabbage, young cocoa-nut trees, and the
tender branches of the wharra tree. Having got a sufficient supply of
these by sun-set, I ordered every body on board. But having little or no
wind, I determined to wait, and to employ the next day by endeavouring
to get some cocoa-nuts for our people from the next island to leeward,
where we could observe that those trees were in much greater abundance
than upon that where we had already landed, and where only the wants of
our cattle had been relieved.

With this view I