I have myself seen the lake of Minneria, which is twenty-two miles in circumference, evaporate to the small dimensions of four miles circuit during a dry season.
A population of some millions wholly dependent upon the supply of rice for their existence would be thrown into sudden starvation by the withdrawal of the water.

Thus have the nations died out like a fire for lack of fuel.

This cause will account for the decay of the great cities of Ceylon.

The population gone, the wind and the rain would howl through the deserted dwellings, the white ants would devour the supporting beams, the elephants would rub their colossal forms against the already tottering houses, and decay would proceed with a rapidity unknown in a cooler clime.

As the seed germinates in a few hours in a tropical country, so with equal haste the body of both vegetable and animal decays when life is extinct.