If we are allowed to make this step, which I think can hardly be refused, we may proceed to enlarge our view, by comprehending, first, the Vallais of the Rhône, secondly, the countries of the Seine and Rhône, above the mountains through which those two rivers in conjunction have broke, below Lyons; and, lastly, that country of the Rhône and Durance which is almost inclosed by the surrounding mountains, meeting at the mouth of the Rhône. But this reasoning will equally apply to the countries of the Garonne, the Loire, and the Seine. One observation more may now be made with regard to the courses of great rivers, and the fertile countries which they form in depositing the travelled soil; it is this. That though those rivers have hollowed out their beds and raised their banks; though they are constantly operating in forming fertile soil in one place and destroying it in another; and though, in many particular situations, the fertile countries, formed at the mouths of those rivers, are visibly upon the increase, yet the general progress of those operations is so slow, that human history does not serve to give us information almost of any former state of things. The Nile will serve as an example of this fact. The river Nile, which rises in the heights of Ethiopia, runs an amazing tract through desert countries, and discharges its waters near the bottom of the Mediterranean sea, fertilizes a long valley among barren countries with which it is surrounded, and thus lays the foundation of a kingdom, which, from its situation and the number of people it can maintain and easily bring together for any manner of action, is perhaps the strongest that can well be imagined. Accordingly, it has been of old a great kingdom, that is to say, a powerful state within itself; and has left monuments of this power, which have long been the admiration of the world. The most ancient Grecian Histories mention these monuments as being no better known, with regard to their dates and authors, than they are at this day.