oir ete couvert par les deux couches superieures,
avoit ete charrie par des eaux courantes. On s'est assure aussi que
les terres une fois _lavees_ ou depouillee de leurs richesses n'en
produisent point d'autres; ce qui prouve que l'or y avoit ete comme
depose."

Therefore, whether we consider the quantity or the quality of the
materials which are found composing the soil upon the surface of the
earth, we must be led to acknowledge an immense waste of the solid
parts, in procuring those relicts which indicate what had been
destroyed.

We have now to examine what is left of that solid part which had
furnished the materials of our soil; this is the part which supports the
vegetable or travelled earth, and this earth sustains the plants and
animals which live upon the globe. It is by this solid part that we are
to judge concerning the operations of time past; of those destructive
operations by which so great a portion of the earth had been wasted and
carried away, and is now sunk at the bottom of the sea.

Man first sees things upon the surface of the earth no otherwise than
the brute, who is made to act according to the mere impulse of his sense
and reason, without inquiring into what had been the former state of
things, or what will be the future. But man does not continue in that
state of ignorance or insensibility to truth; and there are few of those
who have the opportunity of enlightening their minds with intellectual
knowledge, that do not wish at some time or another to be informed of
what concerns the whole, and to look into the transactions of time past,
as well as to form some judgment with regard to future events.

It is only from the examination of the present state of things that
judgments may be formed, in just reasoning, concerning what had been
transacted in a former period of time; and it is only by seeing what had
been the regular course of things, that any knowledge can be formed of
what is afterwards to happen; but, having observed with accuracy
the matter of fact, and having thus reasoned as we ought, without
supposition or misinformation, the result will be no more precarious
than any other subject of human understanding. To those who thus
exercise their minds, the following remarks may furnish a subject for
some speculation. Now, though to human policy it imports not any thing,
perhaps, to know what alterations time had made upon the form and
quantity of this earth, divided into kingdoms, states,