land upon this globe might be frustrated. It is only meant
to affirm, that the quantity which those rocks, or that coast, have
diminished from the period of our history, has either been too small
a thing for human observation, or, which is more probable, that no
accurate measurement of the subject, by which this quantity of decrease
might have been ascertained, had been taken and recorded. It must be
also evident, that a very small operation of an earthquake would be
sufficient to render every means of information, in this manner of
mensuration, unsatisfactory or precarious.

Pliny says Italy was distant from Sicily a mile and a half; but we
cannot suppose that this measure was taken any otherwise than by
computation, and such a measure is but little calculated to afford us
the just means of a comparison with the present distance. He also says,
indeed, that Sicily had been once joined with Italy. His words are:
"Quondam Brutio agro cohaerens, mox interfuso mari avulsa.[18]" But all
that we can conclude from this history of Pliny is, that, in all times,
to people considering the appearances of those two approached coasts,
it had seemed probable, that the sea formed a passage between the two
countries which had been once united; in like manner as is still more
immediately perceived, in that smaller disjunction which is made between
the island of Anglesey and the continent of Wales.

[Note 18: Lib. 3. cap. 8.]

The port of Syracuse, with the island which forms the greater and
lesser, and the fountain of Arethusa, the water of which the ancients
divided from the sea with a wall, do not seem to be altered. From Sicily
to the coast of Egypt, there is an uninterrupted course of sea for a
thousand miles; consequently, the wind, in such a stretch of sea, should
bring powerful waves against those coasts: But, on this coast of Egypt,
we find the rock on which was formerly built the famous tower of Pharos;
and also, at the eastern extremity of the port Eunoste, the sea-bath,
cut in the solid rock upon the shore. Both those rocks, buffeted
immediately with the waves of the Mediterranean sea, are, to all
appearance, the same at this day as they were in ancient times.[19]

[Note 19: Lettres sur l'Egypte, M. Savary.]

Many other such proofs will certainly occur, where the different parts
of those coasts are examined by people of observation and intelligence.
But it is enough for our present purpose, that this decrease of the
coas