Xenophanes thinks that a mixture of the land with the sea occurs, and that in time the land is dissolved by wetness. He claims he has demonstrations of the following kind: shells are found inland and in the mountains. Moreover he says that in Syracuse an impression of a fish and of seaweed has been found in the quarries; in Paros an impression of a bay-leaf in the depth of the rock; and in Malta laminae of all marine life. These came into being, he says, when everything was long ago covered with mud, and the impression was dried in the mud. All mankind is destroyed when the land is carried down into the sea and becomes mud. Subsequently the land starts again on its genesis. And for all worlds genesis takes place through a process of change.