evidently came from the upper, or highest part of the mountain, and the velocity they acquired by the fall must have been at least 300 feet per second, before they reached the ground. As these immense masses struck obliquely against the base of the mountain, they thus acquired a projectile force which spread them far into the plain. These masses were in such quantity, and were projected to such distances, as to cover nine square miles of surface, and to entirely bury five parishes, together with the town and church of St. Andre. In the course of years the rains, or currents of water from dissolving snow, have furrowed channels between the larger masses of stone, and washing away part of the loose earth, have left an immense number of conical hills still remaining. So deep and vast was the mass of ruins which covered the town of St. Andre, and the other parishes, that except a small bronze statue, no individual article belonging to any of them has been found to this day.-Bakewell's Geology.

Fall of Rocks from the Alps. A part of a mountain near Servos, belonging to the Alpine range, and on the road to Chamouny, fell down in the year 1751. This continued several days, mass after mass being precipitated, while an immense volume of dust, the consequence of friction, by the sliding of the rocks on each other, rose so high, and was so dense as to have been seen at the distance of twenty-five miles. A succession of reports, like the firing of heavy cannon, announced the fall of these masses day and night. The aggregate amount thus precipitated was estimated by Donati at 3,000,000 of cubic fathoms, or fifteen millions of cubic feet, a quantity sufficient to form a large hill.

DESTROYING EFFECTS OF THE SEA.

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Mr. Lyell has adduced many instances of the power of sea waves to move large masses of solid rock. In the Shetland Isles this effect has been quite surprising. 1818, during a storm, a mass of granite, nine feet by six, was thrown by the waves up a declivity to the distance of 150 feet; and, in the winter of 1802, a mass of rock

eight feet by seven, and five feet thick, was moved to the distance of ninety feet, by the same force.

The reader, who remembers the immense power which velocity gives a sea wave, as above illustrated, will be at no loss to comprehend why the strongest ships are some times reduced to fragments in a few minutes; nor will he wonder at the destroying effects which a wide ocean must produce on a coast, which is not guarded by a strong barrier of solid rocks.

Destruction of the Village of Mathers. The village of Mathers, on the east coast of Scotland, was destroyed by an inroad of the sea, in 1795. This town was guarded by a barrier of limestone rock next the shore, but during a storm the waves of the ocean broke through this barrier, and in one night destroyed and swept away the whole village. The sea penetrated 150 yards inland, where it has maintained its ground ever since.

Eastern Coasts of England. The eastern coasts of England are constantly suffering from the inroads of the sea. On the old maps of Yorkshire, many spots are marked as the sites of towns which are now sand banks n the ocean. A greater or less portion of the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk, are every year swallowed up by the sea The town of Sherringham, on this coast, exhibits a melan choly proof of this fact. With respect to this town, Mr. Lyell states, that at one point there is now a depth of water of 25 feet, (sufficient to float a frigate,) where only 48 years ago, there stood a cliff fifty feet high, with houses upon it. Further to the south are cliffs more than 200 feet high, more or less of which are every year precipitated into the ocean, in consequence of being undermined by the waves. The whole site of the ancient town of Cromer now forms a part of the bed of the German ocean, the inhabitants having gradually pulled down their houses. and removed inland as the sea encroached upon them; and, from their present situation, they are in danger of being dislodged by the same cause. From this neighborhood, in the year 1822, a mass of earth and rocks was precipitated into the sea, to the extent of twelve acres, the cliffs being 250 feet high; and on the same coast, three ancient villages, several manors, and large portions of a

number of parishes have, from the same cause, gradually disappeared, and been replaced by the ocean.

Since the time of Edward the Confessor, as appears by the records, the sea-coast town of Dunwich has lost in succession, a monastery at one time; at another, several churches; at another, 400 houses; and, subsequently, another church; the town hall and jail, together with many other buildings, all precipitated into the sea.

These are given as specimens of the devastating effects of the sea in different parts of the world, and, by which, it appears that if on the one hand, large tracts of coast are forming, and encroaching upon the ocean in one part of the world, as in the Baltic, and on the coasts of Italy, so on the other hand, the sea is encroaching on the land in other parts, probably to an equal extent.

In many instances, inundations from the sea have been the means of effecting, not only great changes in the surface of the earth, in a short period of time, but also of destroying vast numbers of human beings. On the coast of Holland these disasters have been peculiarly destructive, as well as on the coast opposite.

A considerable peninsula which lay between Groningen and East Friesland, and was thickly inhabited, was partly overwhelmed in 1277, and a considerable portion of the land carried away, with many houses and inhabitants. During the fifteenth century, other portions were destroyed by the same cause, and a part of the town of Forum, a place of considerable size, was swept away. In 1507, not only the remainder of Forum was ingulfed, in spite of the erection of dams, but also several market towns, villages and monasteries, were entirely destroyed, together with their inhabitants.

Further to the north, anciently lay the district of North Friesland. This was a peninsula; but in 1240, the sea destroyed the land next the coast, and thus formed an island called Northstrand. This island was originally of considerable extent, but the sea, from time to time, swept away small portions of it, until the inhabitants became so concentrated, that when the island was only four geogra phical miles in circumference, their number was still nine thousand. At last, on the night of the 11th of October, 1634, a flood from the sea swept over the whole island, and destroyed at once a great proportion of the inhabitants, all the houses, churches and cattle, carrying aw

even the land that had sustained them. By this dreadful calamity, there was swept away 1300 houses, with all the churches, 50,000 head of cattle, and more than 6000 people.

We might continue these accounts with regard to the changes which have taken place on the same coasts to great length; but our design being chiefly to give examples, rather than general details, we will here conclude this part of our subject.

DOWNS, OR SAND HILLS.

In some sections of country, the fine sand that is thrown up by the sea, is carried by the wind to considerable distances, and in such quantities as to cover the land entirely, and to fill up lakes and estuaries. Occasionally, also, there are sand plains at a distance from the sea, where vegetation seems never to have taken root, and where, consequently, there is nothing to prevent the sand from spreading in all directions by the force of the winds.

On the coasts of France and Holland, long chains of sand hills have been formed from the sea, which have effected important geological changes, by barring up the mouths of rivers and bays, and thus preventing the ingress of tides, and changing the course of currents.

On the north coast of Cornwall, in England, a considerable extent of country has been inundated by drifting sand and pulverized shells from the sea shore. Some of the hills thus formed are several hundred feet high. By the shifting of these sands, the ruins of several ancient buildings have been discovered, showing that these changes have been in progress for many centuries. In some places this sand has become so compact as to be employed for architectural purposes, the cementing agent being oxide of iron, which the water carries, in solution, from the upper to the lower strata.

But it is in the East, and especially on the borders of Egypt, that the devastating effects of sand has produced the most calamitous consequences. In Egypt, these are called sand floods, and of their effects De Luc has given the following statement :

"The sands of the Lybian," he says, "driven by the

west winds have left no lands capable of tillage on any parts of the western banks of the Nile, not sheltered by mountains. The encroachment of these sands on districts which were formerly inhabited and cultivated, is evidently seen. M. Denon informs us, in his Travels in Lower and Upper Egypt, that summits of the ruins of ancient cities, buried under these sands, still appear externally; and that but for a ridge of mountains, called the Lybian chain, which borders the left bank of the Nile, and forms, in the parts where it rises, a barrier against the invasion of these sands, the shores of the river, on that side, would long since have ceased to be habitable. Nothing can be more melancholy," says Denon, "than to walk over villages, swallowed up by the sand of the desert, to trample under foot their roofs, to strike against the summits of their minarets, to reflect that yonder were cultivated fields, that there grew trees, that here were even the dwellings of men, and that all have vanished."

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De Luc draws an argument from these sand floods in favor of the newness of the earth, and of the truth of the Mosaic history of the creation.

"If then," he continues, "our continents were as ancient as has been pretended, no traces of the habitation of men would appear on any part of the western bank of the Nile, which is exposed to this scourge of the sands of the desert. The existence, therefore, of such monuments, attests the successive progress of the encroachment of the sand, and these parts of the bank, formerly inhabited, will forever remain arid and waste."

"It is, therefore, not solely to her revolutions and changes of sovereigns, that Egypt owes the loss of her ancient splendor; it is also to her having been thus irrecoverably deprived of a tract of land, by which, before the sands of the desert had covered it, and caused it to disappear, her wants had been abundantly supplied. Now, if we fix our attention on this fact, and reflect on the consequences which would have attended it, if thousands, or only some hundreds of centuries had elapsed since our continents first existed above the level of the sea, does it not evidently appear, that all the country on the west of the Nile would have been buried under this sand before the erection of the cities of ancient Egypt, how remote soever that period may be supposed, and that in a country so long afflicted with sterility, no idea would even