Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/52

42 years before the Chriſtian æra; thoſe of Attica, ſaid to have been overflowed in the times of Ogyges, about five hundred years later; and thoſe of Theſſala, in the time of Deucalian, ſtill 300 years poſterior. But ſuch deluges as theſe will not account for the ſhells found in the higher lands. A ſecond opinion has been entertained, which is, that in times anterior to the records either of hiſtory or tradition, the bed of the ocean, the principal reſidence of the ſhelled tribe, has by ſome great convulſion of nature, been heaved to the heights at which we now find ſhells and other remains of marine animals. The favorers of this opinion do well to ſuppoſe the great events on which it reſts to have taken place beyond all the æras of hiſtory; for within theſe, certainly none ſuch are to be found; and we may venture to ſay further, that no fact has taken place, either in our own days, or in the thouſands of years recorded in hiſtory, which proves the exiſtance of any natural agents, within or without the bowels of the earth, of force ſufficient to heave, to the height of 15,000 feet, ſuch maſſes as the Andes. The difference between the power neceſſary to produce ſuch an effect, and that which ſhuffled together the different parts of Calabria in our days, is ſo immenſe, that, from the exiſtence of the latter we are not authorized to infer that of the former.

M. de Voltaire has ſuggeſted a third ſolution of this difficulty (Queſt. Encycl. Coquilles.) He cites an inſtance in Touraine, where, in the ſpace of 80 years, a particular ſpot of earth had been twice metamorphoſed into ſoft ſtone, which had become hard when employed in building. In this ſtone ſhells of various kinds were produced,