"The nearer we approach towards the sea, adds he, the more it becomes perceptible, the bar has scarcely any water in most of the small outlets which the river has opened, and which have multiplied so greatly from the trees that are carried along with the currents, one of which stopt in a part where it is shallow, will entangle hundreds. I have seen, continues he, 200 leagues from New Orleans, collections of trees, one of which would have filled all the timber-yards of Paris. Nothing can set them free; the mud which the river brings down serves to cement, and, by degrees, covers them. Each inundation leaves a new stratum, and, after 10 years, shrubs and vegetables grow thereon: after this manner most points and islands are formed, which so often change the course of rivers."[BD] [BD] See Charlevoix Travels, vol. II. page 440. Nevertheless all the changes which rivers cause are very slow, and become not considerable till after a long series of years: but quick and sudden changes have happened by inundations and earthquakes. The ancient Egyptian priests, 600 years before the birth of Christ, asserted, according to the Timæus of Plato, that there was a great island near Hercules Pillars; called _Atlantis_, which was larger than Lybia and Asia taken together; and that this island was buried under the waters of the ocean after a great earthquake. "Traditur Atheniensis civitas restitisse olim innumeris hostium copiis quæ, ex Atlantico mari profectæ, prope cunctam Europam Asiamque obsederunt; tunc enim fretum illud navigabile habens in ore et quasi vestibulo ejus insulam quam Herculis columnas cognominant; ferturque insula illa Lybiâ simul et Asiâ Major fuisse, per quam ad alias proximas insulas patebat aditus, atque ex insulis ad omnem continentem è conspectu jacentem vero mari vicinam: sed intrà os ipsum portes augusto sinu traditur, pelagus illud verum mare, terra quoque illa verè erat continens, &c. Post hæc ingenti terræ motu jugique diei unius et noctis illuvione factum est, ut terra dehiscens omnis illos bellicosos absorberet, et Atlantis insula sub vasto gurgite mergeretur." _Plato in Timæus._ This ancient tradition is not absolutely contrary to all probability. The earths which were absorbed by the waters are perhaps those which join Ireland to the Azores, and those to the continent of America; for in Ireland there are the same fossils, shells, and marine productions as in America, some of which are different from any found in other parts of Europe,