Note 2 — CONTENTS.
Reading edition
It is difficult to assign limits to the gradual effects of the circuit of the waters by evaporation and rain on the creation of land, from the decay of vegetable organizations. All the rain which falls on such a country as England, from two to three feet deep per annum, tends to raise the surface of the soil with the substances generated by it, which we call solids. How small a portion reaches the rivulets, and how little returns to the sea! The consideration seems at least to justify the notion, that the waters desiccate in spite of the encroachments of currents, and that all things have proceeded from the silent agency of water. Return