hich he applies
to the age of this earth, in calculating how long time might have been
required for producing the marsh lands of the Elbe.

I would here ask if he can calculate what time it may have required to
hollow out the bed of the Elbe from its source to the sea; and to tell
how often the marsh-lands, which he now sees cultivated, had been formed
and destroyed by the river before they were cultivated in their present
state; or if there is any security that they shall not again be taken
away by the river, and again formed in the same place. If this is the
case, that the river is constantly changing the fertile lands, which it
forms by its inundation, what judgement are we to form by calculating
the quantity of sediment in a certain measure of its muddy water.]

Holland affords the very best example of this fact. It is a low country
formed in the sea. This low land is situated in the bottom of a deep
bay, or upon the coast of a shallow sea, where more materials are
brought by the great rivers from the land of Germany than what the
currents of the sea can carry out into the deep. Here banks of sand are
gathered together by streams and tides; this sand is blown in hillocks
by the wind; and those sand hills are retained by the plants which have
taken root and fixed those moving sands. Behind that chain of hillocks,
which line the sea shore, the waters of the rivers formed a lake, and
the bottom of this lake had been gradually filled up or heightened by
materials travelling in the rivers, and here finding rest. It grew up
until it became a marsh; then man took possession of the soil; he has
turned it to his own life; and, by artificial ramparts of his forming,
preserves it in the present state, some parts above the level of the
sea, others considerably below the ordinary rise of tides. M de Luc,
who has given a very scientific view of this country in his Lettres
Physiques et Morales, has there also furnished us with the following
register of what had been found by sinking in that soil. It was at
Amsterdam at the year 1605 in making a well.

"Voici la designation des matieres qui furent trouvees en partant de la
surface.

51 pieds, meles _de sable tourbeux_, de fable
_des dunes pur_ et _d'argile_ ou
limon.

22.---de meme _sable des dunes pur_,
et _d'argile_ bleuatre.

14.---du meme _sable_ pur.

87 pieds.--Ou rien encore n'indiquoit la
presence de la mer.

55.---de _sable marin_, et _de limo