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Though the success of a particular day's fishing may be a very

uncertain matter, yet the local situation of the country being

supposed, the general efficacy of industry in bringing a certain

quantity of fish to market, taking the course of a year, or of

several years together, it may, perhaps, be thought is certain

enough; and it, no doubt, is so. As it depends more, however,

upon the local situation of the country, than upon the state of

its wealth and industry; as upon this account it may in different

countries be the same in very different periods of improvement,

and very different in the same period; its connection with the

state of improvement is uncertain; and it is of this sort of

uncertainty that I am here speaking.

In increasing the quantity of the different minerals and metals

which are drawn from the bowels of the earth, that of the more

precious ones particularly, the efficacy of human industry seems

not to be limited, but to be altogether uncertain.