overflowed in the time of Ogyges, about five hundred years later; and thofe of Theflaly, in the time of DeucaUon, ftill 300 years pofterior. But fuch deluges as thefe will not account for the fliells found in the higher lands. A fecond opinion has been entertained, which is, that, in times anterior to the records either of hifliory or tradition, the bed of the ocean, the principal refidence of the flielled tribe, has, by fome great convultion of nature, been heaved to the heights at which we now find fliells and other remains of ma- rine animals. The favourers of this opi- nion do well to fuppofe the great events on which it refl:s to have taken place be- yond all the seras of hifliory; for within thefe, certainly none fuch are to be found;
and we may venture to fay further, that no fad: has taken place, either in our own days, or in the thoufands of years recorded in hifl:ory, which proves the exiftence of any natural agents, within or without the bowels of the earth, of force fufiicient [ 6o ] to heave, to the height of 15,000 feet, fuch mafles as the Andes. The difference between the power neceffary to produce fuch an effecft, and that which fhuffled to- gether the different parts of Calabria in our days, is fo immenfe, that, from the exiftence of the latter we are not authori- fed to infer that of the former.
M. de Voltaire has fuggefted a third foiution of this difficulty (Quefl. encycl.
Coquilles.) He cites an inftance in Tou- raine, where, in the fpace of 80 years, a particular fpot of earth had been twice metamorphofed into foft ftone, which had become hard when employed in building.
In this ftone (hells of various kinds were produced, difcoverable at firft only with the microicope, but afterwards growing with the ftone. From this fad, I fup- pofe, he would have us infer, that, be- fides the ufual procefs for generating fhells by the elaboration of earth and water in animal veffels, nature may have provided an equivalent operation, by