But there is a thing in which history and the present state of things do not agree. It is upon the coast of Spain, where Polybius says there was an island in the mouth of the harbour of New Carthage. At present, in place of the island, there is only a rock under the surface of the water. It must be evident, however, that the loss of this small island affords no proper ground of calculation for the measure or rate of wasting which could correspond to the coast in general; as neither the quantity of what is now lost had been measured, nor its quality ascertained.
Let us examine places much more exposed to the fury of the waves and currents than the coast of Carthagena, the narrow fretum, for example, between Italy and Sicily. It does not appear, that this passage is sensibly wider than when the Romans first had known it. The Isthmus of Corinth is also apparently the same at present as it had been two or three thousand years ago. Scilla and Charibdis remain now, as they had been in ancient times, rocks hazardous for coasting vessels which had to pass that strait.
It is not meant by this to say, these rocks have not been wasted by the sea, and worn by the attrition of moving bodies, during that space of time; were this true, and that those rocks, the bulwarks of the land upon those coasts, had not been at all impaired from that period, they might remain for ever, and thus the system of interchanging the place of sea and land upon this globe might be frustrated. It is only meant to affirm, that the quantity which those rocks, or that coast, have diminished from the period of our history, has either been too small a thing for human observation, or, which is more probable, that no accurate measurement of the subject, by which this quantity of decrease might have been ascertained, had been taken and recorded. It must be also evident, that a very small operation of an earthquake would be sufficient to render every means of information, in this manner of mensuration, unsatisfactory or precarious.
Pliny says Italy was distant from Sicily a mile and a half; but we cannot suppose that this measure was taken any otherwise than by computation, and such a measure is but little calculated to afford us the just means of a comparison with the present distance. He also says, indeed, that Sicily had been once joined with Italy. His words are: "Quondam Brutio agro cohaerens, mox interfuso mari avulsa.[18]" But all that we can conclude from this history of Pliny is, that, in all times, to people considering the appearances of those two approached coasts, it had seemed probable, that the sea formed a passage between the two countries which had been once united; in like manner as is still more immediately perceived, in that smaller disjunction which is made between the island of Anglesey and the continent of Wales.
Footnote 18:[ (return) ] Lib. 3. cap. 8.
The port of Syracuse, with the island which forms the greater and lesser, and the fountain of Arethusa, the water of which the ancients divided from the sea with a wall, do not seem to be altered. From Sicily to the coast of Egypt, there is an uninterrupted course of sea for a thousand miles; consequently, the wind, in such a stretch of sea, should bring powerful waves against those coasts: But, on this coast of Egypt, we find the rock on which was formerly built the famous tower of Pharos; and also, at the eastern extremity of the port Eunoste, the sea-bath, cut in the solid rock upon the shore. Both those rocks, buffeted immediately with the waves of the Mediterranean sea, are, to all appearance, the same at this day as they were in ancient times.[19]
Footnote 19:[ (return) ] Lettres sur l'Egypte, M. Savary.
Many other such proofs will certainly occur, where the different parts of those coasts are examined by people of observation and intelligence. But it is enough for our present purpose, that this decrease of the coasts in general has not been observed; and that it is as generally thought, that the land is gaining upon the sea, as that the sea is gaining upon the land.
To sum up the argument, we are certain, that all the coasts of the present continents are wasted by the sea, and constantly wearing away upon the whole; but this operation is so extremely slow, that we cannot find a measure of the quantity in order to form an estimate: Therefore, the present continents of the earth, which we consider as in a state of perfection, would, in the natural operations of the globe, require a time indefinite for their destruction.
But, in order to produce the present continents, the destruction of a former vegetable world was necessary; consequently, the production of our present continents must have required a time which is indefinite. In like manner, if the former continents were of the same nature as the present, it must have required another space of time, which also is indefinite, before they had come to their perfection as a vegetable world.