- from the upper, or highest part of the the velocity they acquired by the fall must ast 300 feet per second, before they reach

As these immense masses struck obliquepase of the mountain, they thus acquired a e which spread them far into the plain. were in such quantity, and were projected es, as to cover nine square miles of surface, bury five parishes, together with the town - St. Andre. In the course of years the nts of water from dissolving snow, have furls between the larger masses of stone, and part of the loose earth, have left an imof conical hills still remaining. So deep he mass of ruins which covered the town of d the other parishes, that except a small no individual article belonging to any of a found to this day.-Bakewell's Geology.

ks from the Alps. A part of a mountain near ging to the Alpine range, and on the road to ell down in the year 1751. This continued mass after mass being precipitated, while an me of dust, the consequence of friction, by the rocks on each other; rose so high, and as to have been seen at the distance of twenA succession of reports, like the firing of , announced the fall of these masses day and e aggregate amount thus precipitated was Donati at 3,000,000 of cubic fathoms, or ns of cubic feet, a quantity sufficient to form

ESTROYING EFFECTS OF THE SEA.

has adduced many instances of the power of O move large masses of solid rock. In the Les this effect has been quite surprising. In a storm, a mass of granite, nine feet by six, by the waves up a declivity to the distance and, in the winter of 1802, a mass of rock

www

ishes have, from the same cause, gradually nd been replaced by the ocean.

ne of Edward the Confessor, as appears by he sea-coast town of Dunwich has lost in monastery at one time; at another, several another, 400 houses; and, subsequently, h; the town hall and jail, together with ildings, all precipitated into the sea. given as specimens of the devastating effects different parts of the world, and, by which, t if on the one hand, large tracts of coast are encroaching upon the ocean in one part of in the Baltic, and on the coasts of Italy, so hand, the sea is encroaching on the land in robably to an equal extent.

stances, inundations from the sea have been effecting, not only great changes in the surrth, in a short period of time, but also of denumbers of human beings. On the coast of e disasters have been peculiarly destructive, the coast opposite.

able peninsula which lay between Groningen esland, and was thickly inhabited, was partly I in 1277, and a considerable portion of the away, with many houses and inhabitants. ifteenth century, other portions were destroyme cause, and a part of the town of Forum, a siderable size, was swept away. In 1507, not mainder of Forum was ingulfed, in spite of of dams, but also several market towns, villanasteries, were entirely destroyed, together

nhabitants.

and that had sustained them. By this dreadful here was swept away 1300 houses, with all the 50,000 head of cattle, and more than 6000

ht continue these accounts with regard to the -hich have taken place on the same coasts to h; but our design being chiefly to give examthan general details, we will here conclude four subject.

DOWNS, OR SAND HILL'S.

sections of country, the fine sand that is thrown sea, is carried by the wind to considerable disin such quantities as to cover the land entirely, up lakes and estuaries. Occasionally, also, and plains at a distance from the sea, where veems never to have taken root, and where, conthere is nothing to prevent the sand from spreaddirections by the force of the winds.

coasts of France and Holland, long chains of have been formed from the sea, which have efortant geological changes, by barring up the rivers and bays, and thus preventing the ingress d changing the course of currents.

Fs have left no lands the western banks of The encroachmen were formerly inhabited Denon informs us, Egypt, that summits of der these sands, still ir a ridge of mountains ich borders the left bank where it rises, a barrier the shores of the rive e have ceased to be habit ancholy," says Denon, lowed up by the sand of their roofs, to strike a rets, to reflect that yond grew trees, that here and that all have vanis De Luc draws an argum of the newness of the ic history of the creat If then he continues has been pretended would appear on any which is exposed to The existence, th

north coast of Cornwall, in England, a consident of country has been inundated by drifting ulverized shells from the sea shore. Some of us formed are several hundred feet high. By g of these sands, the ruins of several ancient have been discovered, showing that these chaneen in progress for many centuries. In some sand has become so compact as to be employitectural purposes, the cementing agent being on, which the water carries, in solution, from to the lower strata.

in the East, and especially on the borders of t the devastating effects of sand has produced alamitous consequences. In Egypt, these are 1 floods, and of their effects De Luc has given ng statement:

ands of the Lybian," he says, "driven by the

the successive prog ad, and these parts of th fever remain arid and It is, therefore, not ges of sovereigns, t dent splendor, it is a embly deprived of a nds of the desert had Par, her wants had bee We fix our attention on quences which would only some hundreds of Continents first existed not evidently appear, the Nile would have the erection of the cit ever that period m try so long afflicted

ve left no lands capable of tillage on any estern banks of the Nile, not sheltered by he encroachment of these sands on districts rmerly inhabited and cultivated, is evidently on informs us, in his Travels in Lower and that summits of the ruins of ancient cities, hese sands, still appear externally; and that ge of mountains, called the Lybian chain, the left bank of the Nile, and forms, in the rises, a barrier against the invasion of these res of the river, on that side, would long ased to be habitable. "Nothing can be more says Denon, "than to walk over villages, by the sand of the desert, to trample under ofs, to strike against the summits of their eflect that yonder were cultivated fields, that rees, that here were even the dwellings of I all have vanished."

aws an argument from these sand floods in newness of the earth, and of the truth of the ry of the creation.

he continues, "our continents were as aneen pretended, no traces of the habitation of ppear on any part of the western bank of the is exposed to this scourge of the sands of the e existence, therefore, of such monuments, atcessive progress of the encroachment of the ese parts of the bank, formerly inhabited, will in arid and waste."

erefore, not solely to her revolutions and sovereigns, that Egypt owes the loss of her ador; it is also to her having been thus irreeprived of a tract of land, by which, before the desert had covered it, and caused it to disapants had been abundantly supplied. Now, if attention on this fact, and reflect on the conseich would have attended it, if thousands, or hundreds of centuries had elapsed since our irst existed above the level of the sea, does it ly appear, that all the country on the west of ould have been buried under this sand before 1 of the cities of ancient Egypt, how remote period may be supposed, and that in a coun