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tion to the western coast; unless, to accommodate the theory, we suppose the total abrasion of

e great mountain which originally constituted the western limit, and which was itself, the embryon of this continent. But for many rea-. sons, and particularly the present contiguity to Asia, at one part, where such a mountain according to the hypothesis, must have run, the idea of any such limit will be thought rather too extravagant for adoption. The fact is that Mr. Buffon has considered his theory rather in its operation on a continent already established, than on the birth orprimitive emersion of a continent from the ocean..

As to the western part of this continent, I mean that which lies beyond the Allegany mountains, if it was not originally gained from the ocean, it has received an accumulation of earth. by no means less wonderful. Far beyond the Ohio, in piercing the earth for water, the stumps of trees, bearing the most evident impressions of the axe, and on one of them the rust of consumed iron, have been discovered between ninety and an hundred feet below the present surface of the earth. This is a proof, by the bye, not only that this immense depth of soil has been accumulated in that quarter; but that, that new country, as the inhabitants of the Atlantic States call it, is, indeed, a very ancient one, and that North America has undergone more revolutions in point of civilization, than have heretofore been thought of, either by the European or American Philosophers. That part of this continent, which borders on the western ocean being almost entirely unknown, it is impossible to say whether

it exhibits the same evidence of emersion which is found here. M'Kenzie, however, the only traveller who has ever penetrated through this vast forest, records a curious tradition among some of the western tribes of Indians; to wit, that the world was once covered with water. The tradition is embellished, as usual, with a number of very highly poetical fictions. The fact which I suppose to be couched under it, is the ancient submersion of that part of the continent; which, certainly looks much more like a world, than the petty territory that was inundated by Deucalion's flood. If I remember aright, for I cannot immediately refer to the book, Stith, in his history of Virginia, has recorded a similar tradition among the Atlantic tribes of Indians. I have no doubt that if M'Kenzie had been as well qualified for scientific research, as he was undoubtedly honest, firm and persevering, it would have been in his power to have thrown great lights on this subject as it relates to the western country.

For my own part, while I believe the present mountains of America to have constituted the original stamina of the continent, I believe, at the same time, the western as well as the eastern country to be the effect of alluvion; produced too by the same causes; the rotation of the earth, and the planetary attraction of the ocean. The perception of this will be easy and simple, if, instead of confounding the mind, by a wide view of the whole continent as it now stands, we carry back our imaginations to the time of its birth, and suppose some one of the highest pinnacles of the Blue Ridge to have just emerged above the

surface of the sea. Now whether the rolling of the earth to the east give to the ocean, which floats loosely upon its bosom, an actual countercurrent, to the west, which is occasionally, further accelerated by the motion of the tides in that

This idea, which is merely stated hypotheti- cally, is considered, by the Enquirer, as having been a position absolutely taken by the British Spy; and as the reverse principle, (to wit, that the motion of the waters is taken from and corresponds with that of the solid earth,) is so well established, he concludes that it must have been contested by the British Spy through mere inadvertence. But for my part, I do not perceive how this hypothetical idea of the British Spy, is, at all, in collision with the doctrine of the diurnal or annual revolution of the terraqueous globe..... The British Spy could not have been guilty of so great an absurdity as to intend that the waters of the ocean deserted their bed and broke over the eastern coasts and lofty mountains of opposing continents in order to maintain their actual counter-current to the west. It must have been clear to him, that the ocean, keeping its bed, must at tend the motion of the earth, "not only on its axis, but in its orbit." But the question here is not as to the position of the whole ocean as it relates to the whole earth; the question is merely as to the locomotion of the particles of the ocean, . among themselves. For although the ocean as well as the solid earth must perform a complete revolution around their common axis once in twenty-four hours, it does not follow, as I take

direction, or whether this be not the case; still to our newly emerged pinnacle, which is whirled, by the earth's motion, through the waters of the deep, the consequences will be the same as if

it, that the globules of the fluid ocean must, all this time, remain as fixed as the atoms of the solid earth: they certainly may and certainly have, from some cause or other, a subordinate motion, among themselves, frequently adverse to the general motion of the globe; to wit, a current to the west. The atmosphere belongs as much to this globe as the waters of the ocean do ; that is to say, it cannot any more than the ocean fly off and attach itself to any other pla-net. It feels, like the ocean, the gravitating rower of the earth and the attraction of the neighboring planets. It is affected, no doubt, very sensibly (at least the lower region of it) by the earth's diurnal rotation, and, like the ocean, is compelled to attend her, in her annual journey around the sun. But what of this? Does the atmosphere remain fixed in such a manner, as that the part of it which our antipodes are respiring at this moment, is to furnish our diet, our pabulum vitas twelve hours hence? Certainly not; the atoms which compose the atmosphere are, we know, in spite of the earth's diurnal and annual motion, agi. tated and impelled in every direction; and so also, we equally well know, are the waters of the ocean.

If the Enquirer, when he says, that "the motion of the earth is communicated to every part of it, whether solid or fluid," intends that the mo tion of the loose and fluid particles of the ocean,

there were this actual and strong current. For while the waters will be continually accumulated on the eastern coast of this pinnacle, it is obvious that on the western coast, (protected, as it would

take, from the earth, a flux among themselves to the east; the result would be, an actual current to the east; which is not pretended. If he mean, that the globules of the ocean, unaffected by any other cause than the motion of the earth, would always maintain the same position in relation to each other, he may, indeed, alledge, a principle which is well established; but as it does not meet the approbation of my reason, and as I am not in the habit of reading merely that I may understand and believe, I must beg permission to enter my dissent to the principle. It would be difficult, if not impossible, so close as we are in the neighborhood of the earth's attraction, to invent any apparatus by which a decisive experiment could. be made on this subject. But, by the way of illustration, let us suppose the earth at rest; let us suppose the atmosphere, by the hand of the great chemist who raised it into its present aeriform state, once more reduced to a fluid; let us suppose it, like a great ocean, to surround the earth within the torrid zone, (partitioned at right angles, by two or three mountains running from north to south) and all its parts reposing in a halcyon calm; let us then suppose the earth whirled on it's axis to the east; what would be the probable effect? It is clear that the lower region of this superincumbent ocean would be most strongly bound by the earth's attraction it is equally clear