Freestone is the product of fand; and the deeper the bed where it is found, the more compact it becomes; and the more denfe the fand, the more eafily it concretes: But, if an alcaline clay chances to be mixed with the fand, the freeftone is generated more readily. The flint is almoft the only kind of stone, certainly the most common stone in chalky mountains: It seems therefore to be produ ced from chalk. Whether it can be reduced again to chalk I leave to others to inquire. Stalactites, or drop-ftone, is compofed. ef calcareous particles, adhering to a dry and generally a vegetable body. The incrustations are often generated where a vitriolic water connects clayey and earthy particles together. Slate, by the vegetables that are often in clofed in it, feems to take its origin from a marthy mould. Metals vary according to the nature of the matrix in which they adhere. The pyrites cupri contains frequently fulphur, arfenic, iron, copper, a little gold, vitriol, alum; fometimes lead ore, filver, and zink. Thus gold, copper, iron, zink, arsenic, pyrites, and vitriol come out of the fame vein. The number therefore of fpecies, and varieties of foffils, each ferving for dif. ferent purposes, according to their different natures, will be in proportion, as the different kinds of earths and tones are varioufly combined. As foffils are deftitute of life and organifation, and are hard, and not obnoxious to putrefaction; fo they laft longer than any other kind of bodies. How far the air con tributes to this duration it is easy to perceive, fince air hardens many ftones upon the fuperficies of the earth, and makes them more folid, compact, and able to refift the injuries of time: Thus it is known, from vulgar obfervation, that lime that has been long expofed to the air becomes hardened. The chalky marl, which they ufe in Flanders for building houfes, as long as it continues in the quarry, is friable; but when dug up and exposed to the air grows gradually harder. In the fame way our old walls and towers gain a firmnefs in procefs of time; and therefore it is a vulgar mistake, that our ancestors excelled the modern architects in the art of building as to this point. However ignorant we may be of the caufe why large rocks are every-where to be seen fplit, whence large fragments are frequently torn off; yet this we may observe, that fi fures are clofed up by water that gets b tween them, and is detained there; and a confolidated by cryftal and fpar. Hence w fcarcely ever find any crystal but in tho ftones which have retained for fome time i its chinks water loaded with ftony particle In the fame manner crystals fill the cavitie in mines, and concrete into quartz, or debased crystal. It is manifeft that ftones are not only ge nerated, augmented, and changed perpe tually from incruftations brought upon mofs but are also increased by crystal and fpar Not to mention that the adjacent earth, el pecially if it be impregnated with iron par ticles, is commonly changed into a foli ftone. It is faid that the marble quarries in Italy from whence fragments, are cut, grow up again. Ores grow by little and little, when ever the mineral particles, conveyed by the means of water through the clefts of moun tains, are retained there; fo that, adhering to the homogeneous matter a long while, a lalt they take its nature, and are changed into a fimilar fubftance. Foffils, although they are the hardest of bodies, yet are found fubject to the laws of deftruction, as well as all other created fubftances; for they are diffolved in various ways by the elements exerting their force upon them, as by water, air, and the folar rays; as also by the rapidity of rivers, violence of cataracts, and eddies which continually beat upon, and at last reduce to powder, the hardest rocks. The agitations of the fea and lakes, and the vehemence of the waves, excited by turbulent winds, pulverife ftones, as evidently appears by their roundness along the fhore. So that we ought not to wonder, that, thefe very hard bodies moulder away into powder, and are obnoxious like others to the confuming tooth of time. Sand is formed of freestone, which is deftroyed partly by froft, making it friable, and partly by the agitation of water and waves; which easily wear away, diffolve, and reduce into minute particles, what the froft had made friable. Chalk is formed of rough marble, which the air, the fun, and the winds have diffolved. The flate earth owes its origin to flate, fhowers, air, and fnow melted. Ochre is formed of metals diffolved, whofe fæces prefent the very fame colours which we always find the ore tinged with, when expofed to the air. Vitriol in the fame manner mixes with water from ores de ftroyed, The The muria faxatilis, a kind of talky stone yielding falt, in the parts that are turned to the fun, is diffolved into fand, which falls by little and little upon the earth till the whole is confumed; not to mention other kinds of foflils. Laftly, from these there arife new fofils, as we mentioned before; so that the deftruction of one thing ferves for the generation of another, Teftaceous worms ought not to be paffed over on this occafion; for they eat away the hardest rocks. That fpecies of thell-fif, called the razor fhell, bores through tones in Italy, and hides itself within them; fo that the people who eat them are obliged to break the ftones before they can come at them. The cochlea, a kind of fnail that lives on craggy rocks, eats, and bores through the chalky hills, as worns do through wood. The Natural and Political Hiftory of GUARDALOUPE, one of the French Caribbee lands in America, Illuftrated with a new and accurate Map, curioufy engraved. T(who difcovered it) was called Guas, thofe parts; being, according to Father HIS ifland, which by Columbus neft iflands belonging to the French in daloupe, from the refemblance of its moun- niards like children. This inland is, according to Moll, 15 miles north-weft of Marigalante; and is reckoned 30 leagues north-welt from Martinico. It is the largeft, and one of the fi. Tertre, near 100 leagues in compals. He has exhibited a map of it, which reprefents it as divided into two parts by a channel a bout a league and an half over, called the Salt river, navigable only by canoes, running north and fouth, and communicating with the fea, on both fides, by a great bay at each end, of which, that on the north is called Grand Cul de Sac, and that on the fouth, Petit Cul de Sac. The east part of the ifland is called Grande Terre, and is about 19 French leagues from Antego Point on the north-weit to the Point of Guardaloupe on the fouth-east, and about 9 leagues and an half in the middle, where broadeft. M. Robbe the French geographer, makes this part about 50 leagues in compafs. The west part, which is properly Guardaloupe, according to Laet, fubdivided by a ridge. of mountains into Capes Terre, on the welt, and Baffe Terre, on the east. This is 13 leagues and a half from north to fouth, and 7 and a half, where broadeft; and, according to M. Robbe, 45 leagues in compass. Both parts would be joined by an ifthmus a league and an half in breadth, were it not cut through by the faid canal. Labat fays, the French were obli ged to abandon the part called Grande Terre in 1696, by reafon of the frequent incurfions and depredations committed there by the English, from Antigua and Montferrat. Befides, this part is deftitute of fresh water, which is fo plentiful in the other (properly called Guardaloupe, becaufe it was firft inhabited and discovered) that it has enough to fupply the neighbouring islands. He makes the latter 35 leagues in compafs, and the two iflands together about ga. The Salt river, he fays, is about 50 toifes, or 300 feet over, at its mouth, towards the Great Cul de Sac, from whence it grows more narrow; La that, in fome places, it is not above 90 feet over. Its depth is also as unequal as its breadth breadth; for in fome places it will carry a fhip of 500 tons, and in others, it will hardly bear a veffel of 50 tons. It is a fmooth clear ftream, above two leagues from the one Cul de Sac to the other, and finely fhaded, for the moft part, with mangroves. The air is very clear and wholesome, and not fo hot as in Martinico: Here is plenty alfo of water, as good as the foil is rich; yet it is not near fo populous as Martinico, It is faid to contain 10,000 European inha bitants, and 30,000 Negroes; and the French have fortified it with feveral regular forts. Labat here found the copau tree so famous for its fanative balfam, or oil, which he had fought for, in vain, throughout all the French islands. This tree is hand fome, about twenty feet high, with a leaf like that of an orange tree, only fomewhat longer, and more pointed, and of an aromatic fmell; as is alfo its bark when rubbed between the fingers. Its wood is white, and very foft, and its growth is quick, becaufe the fap is always rifing. Labat gives particular directions as to the time and manner of cutting the bark, to let out the balm. He fays it does not grow hard or dry, like the balfam of Peru; and commends it as a fpecific for almost all maladies, both internal and external. He alfo found here that called the milk-shrub, whose leaf rembles the laurel, only it is larger, thicker, and fofter; and its fibres, when preffed, yield a liquor that has the colour and fubftance of milk. It has blossoms of five or fix flowers each, much resembling thofe of jeffamin, being white, and containing in the middle a little oval bud, inclofing two small black grains or kernels, the feed of the tree, which alfo thrives very well from the flips. The bark of it is a pale green without, and white within; and its pith is like that of elder. The ftem of the leaves is about an inch long, with a knot at the place where it touches the bark. Labat commends its juice for almost as many virtues as the copau tree. Here is also the moubane tree, which bears yellow plums, wherewith they fatten their hogs; and the corbary, a tree which bears fruit in a fhell, containing a downy pulp, of a faffron colour, and yields a gum, which being hardened in the fun becomes very clear; fo that the native Caribbees ufed it for bracelets, and other ornaments. There are pear-trees here, like the European in leaf, but they bear no fruit. The chief product of the foil is fugar, cotton, indigo, ginger, tobacco, cassia, bananas, pine-apples, ftore of rice, maize, mandioca, and potatoes; fome of the mountains in the ridge above-mentioned are overgrown with trees, and at the foor of others are large plains, watered by sweet streams. Among is a fort of volcano continually meal which gives a fulphureous tafte to the about it; and there are feveral boiling fprings (particularly one on the weft near the island of Goyaves, which are to be good for the dropfy, and all diftem proceeding from colds. The two gul called the Cul de Sac, abound with toifes, fharks, pilots, and all the other f of fish common to these feas ; and her abundance of thofe called land crabs, w fwarms of musketo's and gnats. The forts of this ifland, as defcribed the miffionary Fathers, Tertre and Lab who have given the best accounts of all French Caribbee, as well as the Antil iflands, are, 1. Fort Louis in the Gran Terre, on the eaft fide of the bay call Petit Cul de Sac. It is too high to defer the veffels that anchor at the bottom of and is good for nothing, fays Labat, b its fweet air, and extenfive profpect; an therefore the French have erected a redout below it, with a battery of fix guns, whic play into the road. From this fort may b feen, not only the greatest part of the Cabe Terre, and of the Great Cul de Sac, and confiderable number of fmall islands in th Petit Cul de Sac, and the islands of Xaints or Saints; but alfo the mountains of Dominica, in clear weather. This fort lies in that quarter called the parish of Gofier, in the Grande Terre. Labat went to fee certain abyffes, as he calls them, in the Grande Terre, which, he fays, are great indentures made in the land by the fea, that afford fhelter for veffels in very deep water hurricanes, or an enemy; and where, instead of dropping anchors, they are moored to the palmetto trees on either fide, the branches of which, in a manner, cover them. 2. The Great Cul de Sac contains a bafon five or fix leagues in length from the point of Gros Morne, in the Baffe Terre, to that of Antigua, in the Grande Terre. It is alfo near 3 leagues in the broadeft part, and at least one in the narroweft, and a fafe riding for fhips of all rates. 3. The Petit Cul de Sac is a populous, well cultivated, and trading parish, to the north of that of Goyaves; and both are in the Cabes Terre, on the eaft fide of proper Guardaloupe. Here are no lefs than eight rivers, befides near as many brooks, that run into the fea in the fpace of four leagues, between the river of Coin, which is to the weft of the Salt river, and the Brick-kiln river. This tract, which is about a league by the fea-fhore, and at least three from thence to the mountains that separate the Baffe Terre from the Grande Terre, was by |