In short, Let any such considering Person imagine the vast Tract of Marsh-Lands on both sides the River _Thames_, to _Harwich_ on the _Essex_ side, and to _Whitstable_ on the _Kentish_ side, the Levels of Marshes up the _Stour_ from _Sandwich_ to _Canterbury_, the whole Extent of Lowgrounds commonly call'd _Rumney-Marsh_, from _Hythe_ to _Winchelsea_, and up the Banks of the _Rother_; all which put together, and being allow'd to be in one place cover'd with Water, what a Lake wou'd it be suppos'd to make? According to the nicest Calculations I can make, it cou'd not amount to less than 500000 Acres of Land. The Isle of _Ely_, with the _Flats_ up the several Rivers from _Yarmouth_ to _Norwich_, _Beccles_, &c. the continu'd Levels in the several Counties of _Norfolk_, _Cambridge_, _Suffolk_, _Huntingdon_, _Northampton_, and _Lincoln_, I believe do really contain as much Land as the whole County of _Norfolk_; and 'tis not many Ages since these Counties were universally one vast Moras or Lough, and the few solid parts wholly unapproachable: insomuch that the Town of _Ely_ it self was a Receptacle for the Malecontents of the Nation, where no reasonable Force cou'd come near to dislodge them. 'Tis needless to reckon up twelve or fourteen like Places in _England_, as the Moores in _Somersetshire_, the Flat-shores in _Lancashire_, _Yorkshire_, and _Durham_, the like in _Hampshire_ and _Sussex_; and in short, on the Banks of every Navigable River. The sum of the matter is this; That while this Nation was thus full of standing Lakes, stagnated Waters, and moist Places, the multitude of Exhalations must furnish the Air with a quantity of Matter for Showers and Storms infinitely more than it can be now supply'd withal, those vast Tracts of Land being now fenc'd off, laid dry, and turn'd into wholsome and profitable Provinces. This seems demonstrated from _Ireland_, where the multitude of Loughs, Lakes, Bogs, and moist Places, serve the Air with Exhalations, which give themselves back again in Showers, and make it be call'd, _The Piss-pot of the World_. The imaginary Notion I have to advance on this Head, amounts only to a Reflection upon the Skill of those Ages in the Art of Navigation; which being far short of what it is since arrived to, made these vast Northern Seas too terrible for them to venture in: and accordingly, they rais'd those Apprehensions up to Fable, which began only in their want of Judgment. The _Phoenicians_, who were our first Navigators, the _Genoese_, and after them the _Portuguese_, who arriv'd to extraordinary Proficiency in Sea Affairs, were yet all of them, _as we say_, Fair-weather Sea-men: The chief of their Navigation was Coasting; and if they were driven out of their Knowledge, had work enough to find their way home, and sometimes never found it at all; but one Sea convey'd them directly into the last Ocean, from whence no Navigation cou'd return them.