2º. If these effects proceed from local deluges, recedings of the sea, gulphs atterrated, _&c._ we should then indeed find marine remains: but how will that account for the vast quantity of remains of terrestrial vegetables and animals, equally met with, and in like manner as the marine remains, in the bowels of the earth? And, 3º. Were local or partial deluges the cause, we should then find only the animals and plants of the climates or places, where such deluges have happened; whereas in these fossil remains it is quite the contrary: the remains of those plants and animals, we know, are of animals and plants, the inhabitants of the most remote climes from those, where they now lie buried; _e.g._ the rhinoceros-bones, in the cave called Baumans-hole, in the Hartz Forest in Germany; the strange bones in the Antra Draconum in Hungary; the horns of the moose-deer, and other prodigious horns, and elephants bones, found in England, Ireland, Germany, Sibiria, and even America, _&c._ of vegetables, parts of the arbor tristis in France; bamboo’s, or great Indian reeds, frequent in England; with numbers of other such examples. And of those remains even of the marine shells, yet unknown to us, all appear exotic to the climes where they now lie deposited; _e.g._ the cliffs at Harwich in Essex abound with a species of _buccinum heterostrophum_, and other shells, never yet discovered in the adjacent waters. The _ammonitæ_ of so many species, and the innumerable variety of _conchæ anomiæ_, with which this island abounds, are yet unknown to be inhabitants of our seas, and appear exotic to this climate. Therefore, my Lord, I reasonably conclude partial or local deluges could never have produced such effects. However, unprejudiced to any opinion, if the learned, who favour the system of partial deluges, will either confute these my assertions, or give solid reasons for the facts alleged to be producible by local deluges, atterrations, _&c._ I will joyfully embrace the truth: but till then, my Lord, I would recommend to those systematical gentlemen, not to pervert that excellent maxim of the great Lord Bacon, and, instead of _Non fingendum neque excogitandum, sed inveniendum quid natura faciat, aut ferat_, not to corrupt it into _fingendum atque excogitandum, non inveniendum quid natura faciat, aut ferat_. I am, with great submission and respect, MY LORD, Your Lordship’s Most devoted, and most obliged, humble Servant, Emanuel Mendes da Costa. London, 27 April, 1757.