posed to have been originally attached. It is equally clear that, by this means, the continents will not only exchange their materials, but their position; so that in process of time, they must respectively make a tour around the globe, maintaining, still, the same ceremonious distance from each other, which they now hold.

According to my theory, which supposes an alluvion on the western as well as the eastern coasts, the continents and islands of the earth, will be caused, reciprocally to approximate, and (if materials enough can be found in the bed of the ocean or generated by any operation of nature) ultimately to unite. Our island of Great Britain, therefore, at some future day, and in proper person, will probably invade the territory of France. In the course of this process of alluvion as it relates to this country, the refluent waters of the Atlantick will be forced to recede from Hampton Roads and the Chesapeake, the beds whereof will become fertile vallies, or, as they are called here, river bottoms; while the lands in the lower district of the state, which are now only a very few feet above the surface of the sea, will rise into majestic eminences, and the present sickly site of Norfolk be converted into a high and salubrious mountain. I apprehend, however, that the present inhabitants of Norfolk would be extremely unwilling to have such an ef

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fect wrought in their day; since there can be little doubt that they prefer their present commercial situation, incumbered as it is by the annual visits of the yellow fever, to the elevation and health of the Blue Ridge.

In the course of the process, too, of which I have been speaking, if the theory be correct, the gulf of Mexico will be eventually filled and the West India Islands consolidated with the American continent.

up,

These consequences, visionary as they may now appear, are not only probable, but if the alluvion which is demonstrated to have taken place already, should continue, they are inevitable. There is very little probability that the isthmus of Darien, which connects the continents, is coeval with the Blue Ridge or the Cordilleras; and it requires only a continuation of the causes which produced the isthmus, to effect the reception of the gulph and the consolidation of the islands with the continent.

But when I am possessed of no data whereby the calculations can be made.— The depth at which Herculaneum and Pompeia were found to be buried in the course of 1600 years affords us no light on this inquiry; because their burial was effected not by the slow alluvion and accumulation of time, but by the sudden eruptions of Vesuvius. As little are we aided by the repletion of the earth around the Tarpeian rock in

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Rome; since that repletion was most probably effected in a very great degree by the materials of fallen buildings. And besides, the original height of the rock is not ascertained with any kind of precision, historians having, I believe, merely informed us that it was sufficiently elevated to kill the criminals who were thrown from its summit.

But a truce with philosophy. Who could have believed that the skeleton of an unwieldy Whale, and a few mouldering teeth of a Shark would have led me such a dance !-Adieu, my dear S*******, for the present. May the light of Heaven continue to shine around you!

BRITISH SPY.

LETTER III.

RICHMOND, SEPTEMBER, 15.

YOU inquire into the state of your favourite art in Virginia. Eloquence my dear S*******, has few successful votaries here. I mean eloquence of the highest order; such as that, to which not only the bosom of your friend, but the feelings of the whole British nation, bore evidence, in listening to the charge of the Begums in the prosecution of Warren Hastings.

In the national and state legislatures, as well as at the various bars in the United States, I have heard great volubility, much good sense, and some random touches of the pathetick; but in the same bodies I have heard a far greater proportion of puerile rant, of tedious and disgusting inanity. Three remaks are true as to almost all their orators.

First; they have not a sufficient fund of general knowledge.

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Secondly; they have not the habit of close and solid thinking.

Thirdly; they do not aspire at original

ornaments.

From these three defects it most generally results, that, although they pour out, easily enough, a torrent of words, yet these are destitute of the light of erudition, the practical utility of just and copious thought, of those novel and beautiful allusions and embellishments with which the very scenery of the country is so highly calculated to inspire them.

The truth is, my dear S*******, that * this scarcity of genuine and sublime eloquence is not confined to the United States; instances of it in any civilized country have always been rare indeed. Mr. Blair is certainly correct in the opinion, that a state of nature is most favourable to the higher efforts of the imagination, and the more unrestrained and noble raptures of the heart. Civilization, wherever it has gained ground, has interwoven with society, a habit of artificial and elaborate decorum, which mixes in every operation of life, deters the fancy from every bold enterprize, and buries nature under a load of hypocritical ceremonies. A man therefore, in order to be eloquent, has to forget the habits in which he has been educated; and never will he touch his audience so exquisitely, as when he goes back to