8. Islands have become connected with the mainland by the growth of deltas and new deposits; as in the case of Antissa joined to Lesbos, Pharos to Egypt, &c.
9. Peninsulas have been divided from the main land, and have become islands, as Leucadia; and according to tradition, Sicily, the sea having carried away the isthmus.
10. Land has been submerged by earthquakes; the Grecian cities of Helice and Buris, for example, are to be seen under the sea, with their walls inclined.
11. Plains have been upheaved into hills by the confined air seeking vent; as at Trœzene in the Peloponnesus.
12. The temperature of some springs varies at different periods. The waters of others are inflammable.[16]
13. There are streams which have a petrifying power, and convert the substances which they touch into marble.
14. Extraordinary medicinal and deleterious effects are produced by the water of different lakes and springs.[17]
15. Some rocks and islands, after floating and having been subject to violent movements, have at length become stationary and immovable; as Delos and the Cyanean Isles.[18]
16. Volcanic vents shift their position; there was a time when Etna was not a burning mountain, and the time will come when it will cease to burn. Whether it be that some caverns become closed up by the movements of the earth, and others opened, or whether the fuel is finally exhausted, &c., &c.
The various causes of change in the inanimate world having been thus enumerated, the doctrine of equivocal generation is next propounded, as illustrating a corresponding perpetual flux in the animate creation.[19]