There is a certain order established for the progress of nature, for the succession of things, and for the circulation of matter upon the surface of this globe; and, the order of time is associated with this change of things. But it is not in equal portions that time is thus combined with dissimilar things, nor always found, in our estimation, as equally accompanying those which we reckon similar. The succession of light and darkness is that which, in those operations, appears to us most steady; the alternation of heat and cold comes next, but not with equal regularity in its periods. The succession of wet and dry upon the surface of the earth, though equally the work of nature and the effect of regular causes, is often to us irregular, when we look for equal periods in the course of things which are unequal. It is by equalities that we find order in things, and we wish to find order every where. The present object of our contemplation is the alternation of land and water upon the surface of this globe. It is only in knowing this succession of things, that natural appearances can be explained; and it is only from the examination of those appearances, that any certain knowledge of this operation is to be obtained. But how shall we acquire the knowledge of a system calculated for millions, not of years only, nor of the ages of man, but of the races of men, and the successions of empires? There is no question here with regard to the memory of man, of any human record, which continues the memory of man from age to age; we must read the transactions of time past, in the present state of natural bodies; and, for the reading of this character, we have nothing but the laws of nature, established in the science of man by his inductive reasoning. It has been in reasoning after this manner, that I have endeavoured to prove, that every thing which we now behold, of the solid parts of this earth, had been formerly at the bottom of the sea; and that there is, in the constitution of this globe, a power for interchanging sea and land. If this shall be admitted as a just view of the system of this globe, we may next examine, how far there are to be found any marks of certain parts of our earth having more than once undergone that change of posture, or vicissitude of things, and of having had reiterated operations of the mineral kingdom changing their substance, as well as altering their positions in relation to the atmosphere and sea.