200
HISTORY OF SETTLEMENTS AND TRADE
book and terminate at the tropic of Capricorn, divided 6»
XV11-    the eaft and weft by the ocean that furrounds them.
Whatever may be the ftrudure of thefe two conti-
nents, and the quality or fymmetry of their form, it is
evident that their equilibrium does not depend upon
their pofition.    It is the inconftancy of the fea that
conftitutes the folid form of the earth.    To fix the
globe upon its bafis, it feemed neceffary to have an
element which, floating inceffantly round our planet,
might  by  its  weight counterbalance  all other fub-
ftances,  and  by its fluidity  reftore  that equilibrium
which 'the conflid of the other elements might have
difturbed.     Water,   by   its   natural  fluduation and
weight, is the moft proper element to preferve the
connedion and balance of the feveral parts of the
globe round its centre.    If our hemifphere has a very
wide extent of continent to the north, a mafs of water
of equal weight at the oppofite part will certainly pro-
duce an equilibrium.    If under the tropics we have a
rich country covered with men and animals,  under
the fame latitude America will have a fea filled with
fiih.    While forefts full of trees,  bending with the
largeft fruits, quadrupeds of the greateft fize, the moll
populous nations, elephants and men, are a load upon
the furface of the earth, and feem to abforb all its fer^
tihty throughout the torrid zone ; at both poles are
found whales,  with innumerable multitudes  of cods
and herrings, clouds of infeds, and all the infinite and
prodigious tribes that inhabit the feas, as it were, to
fupport the axis of the earth, and prevent its inclining
or  deviating  to  either fide :    if,   indeed,   elephants,
whales, or men, can be faid to have any weight on a
globe, where all living creatures are but a tranfient
modification of the earth that compofes it.   In a word,
the ocean rolls over this globe to fafhion it, in con-
formity to the general laws of gravity.    Sometimes it
covers a hemifphere, a pole, or a zone, which at other
times it leaves bare ; but in general it feems to aff'ed
the equator, more efpecially as the cold of the poles
in fome meafure contrads that fluidity which is eflen-