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IN THE DISPOSITION change the position of’ a former one. The bank gene rated at the mouths of the Nile, by the opposing ac tions of the stream and of the sea, soon produces an island; which, united to the shore, and becoming the gradual basis of vegetation, extends the region of the Delta. The Gulf of Pe-tche-lee is similarly filled with islands ; the extensive shoaling of the shores round the mouths of the Amazon, is the prelude to that further extension which the coast is here under going: while the land advances fifteen leagues in a century under the power of the Mississipi. The Gulf of Mexico is gradually filling up in the same manner; though the gulf stream here assists, by means of the earth conveyed along the eastern shore: the land having been so far extended, that shells are now found thirty miles in the interior. If the insignificance of our own rivers does not permit us equally to witness these effects, they are still sufficiently sensible every where, and most distinctly so at the mouth of the Tay. With respect to the sea line, if the general effect is to change its form by extending the land, the ultimate practical results are very different. Thus towns, once maritime, are now many miles inland; as Ravenna, a sea port in the time of Augustus, is at present, a league from the sea. And thus, as commerce has been ex cluded from harbours, and wealthy territories ruined, might physical causes have done for Venice, what moral ones have effected with far greater speed. But if this increase, combined with political and moral ruin, has destroyed many more of the once wealthy ports of the Mediterranean, the same operation, in other places, aided by the rise of empire and by industry, has added to the world, cities and harbours not less populous and flourishing; destined in their turns to submit to the same fate, as nature, ever steady, shall triumph over