Without dwelling longer upon conjectures, which, although well founded, may appear hazardous and rash, we shall give some recent and certain examples of the change of the sea into land, and the land into sea. At Venice the bottom of the Adriatic is daily rising, and if great care had not been taken to clean and empty the canals, the whole would long since have formed part of the continent; the same may be said of most ports, bays, and mouths of rivers. In Holland the bottom of the sea has risen in many places; the gulph of Zuyderzee and the strait of the Texel cannot receive such large vessels as formerly. At the mouth of all rivers we find small islands, and banks of sand and earth brought down by the waters, and it is certain the sea will be filled up in every part where great rivers empty themselves. The Rhine is lost in the sands which itself accumulated. The Danube and the Nile, and all great rivers, after bringing down much sand and earth, no longer come to the sea by a single channel; they divide into different branches, and the intervals are filled up by the materials they have themselves brought thither. Morasses daily dry up; lands forsaken by the sea are cultivated; we navigate countries now covered by waters; in short, we see so many instances of land changing into water, and water into land, that we must be convinced of these alterations having, and will continue to take place; so that in time gulphs will become continents; isthmusses, straits; morasses, dry lands; and the tops of our mountains, the shoals of the sea.