CHAPTER VIII.

General View of the existing Surface.-Force of the Waves.Principles of Stratification.-Cavous Limestone.-Gibraltar. -The Plains of the Earth.-Of South America.—Of Africa. -Of Asia.-Of Europe.-Result of this View.-Chalk Basins.-That of Paris, a Guide to all similar Basins.--Salt Deposits.-Coal Formations.-Evidences of Coul being a Marine, and not a Lacustrine Formation.

Thus have we followed, in as concise a manner as the subject will admit of, the traditions as well as the history of this awful event, both supported by the corroborative evidence of numerous physical facts in all parts of the world: and we cannot doubt its having been the intention of the Almighty, that the memory of so signal a judgment should be for ever deeply imprinted on the human mind, even in the most distant and isolated corners of the earth. But we should not be doing justice to so interesting a subject, if we left it, without taking a general view of the present surface of the habitable globe, and further tracing, as we shall every where be able to do, the lasting monuments of it, so universally presented to our consideration.

When we consider, then, the state of the earth, as it now is, we find it divided into sea and land; but so unequally, that the ocean occupies about three-fifths of the whole surface; and if a meridian line be taken to divide the earth equally, we shall find the proportions of land and water, on the opposite sides, strikingly different: there being a great preponderance of water on the southern, and of land in the northern hemisphere.*

*We shall have a future opportunity of remarking the difference of temperature between the Southern and Northern Polar regions,

On viewing, on the great scale, the general condition of this land, we find by far the greater portion of it but little elevated above the level of the ocean: so little, indeed, that it may be safely said that nine-tenths of the whole would be again submerged, either by a rise in the level of the waters of a very few hundred feet, or by a depression of the land to a similar trifling extent. There is, perhaps, no portion of the whole extent of the plains of the earth, where the primitive surface of the globe can be seen. Nor can it even be reached by mining, without a deep section of various secondary formations. Even the most elevated plains, and many mountains of very considerable height, are either entirely formed of, or heavily loaded with, strata of secondary rocks. It is, generally, only on the tops of the most elevated mountain ridges, where the primitive formations of the earth are found in mass. But the lower portions of even the highest mountains, bear unequivocal marks of their having once formed the bed of the sea: and fossil sea shells have been found upon the Andes, at an elevation of 14,000 feet above the present level of the ocean. Whole ridges, however, of very considerable height, are found to be entirely formed of these secondary formations; and so full of fossil shells, that no doubt can be entertained of their present site having once formed the bottom of the sea.

The ridge of the Jura mountains, to the south-west of the Alpine range of Switzerland, is one of the most remarkable and best known of these secondary formations. This ridge rises from 3 to 4000 feet above the level of the Swiss plain; and its length is nearly one hundred leagues, being from eighteen to twenty in breadth.

It is almost entirely composed of compact limestone, in strata which alternate with beds of clay and shelly marl; and the stratification is so much inclined, that it presents a most interesting example and proof of a raising or depressing power having been in force, subsequent to the nearly horizontal stratification which must at all times take place from a deposition in water. There is, also, to be found on this secondary ridge a remarkable proof of a great mechanical power having been exerted, such as the deluge was perhaps

which difference may, probably, be accounted for by the great preponderance of land in the one, and of water in the other hemisphere.

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alone capable of. Innumerable masses of primitive rock are found scattered on the surface, even at a height of 2500 feet. These masses, so far detached from their parent rock on the Alpine summits, (and similar masses of granite are found on almost all the alluvial plains of Switzerland), have given rise to much difficulty, and various theories among geologists, all which are rendered nugatory, by referring their present locality to the powers of the deluge, the extent of which no one can reasonably doubt, who has considered the instances of mechanical force constantly exhibited by the ocean when in a state of agitation.

Some recent and remarkable instances of the great mechanical force of the waves may be interesting, on a subject which has occasioned so much theoretical discussion amongst philosophers. In the Isle of Eshaness, in Shetland, which is exposed to the full fury of the western ocean, huge blocks of stone are removed far from their native beds, and hurried up an acclivity to an almost incredible distance. In 1802, a mass eight feet by seven, and five feet thick, was dislodged from its bed, and removed to a distance of about 90 feet. The bed from which another block had been removed, in 1818, was seventeen and a half feet by seven, and two and a half feet thick. This mass had been borne to some distance, and then shivered into many lesser, though still large, fragments, which were carried more than 120 feet further. Ablock nine feet by six and a half, and four feet thick, was carried up a slope a distance of 150 feet. A mass of rock, the average dimensions of which may be rated at twelve or thirteen feet square, and five feet thick, was first moved from its bed, to a distance of upwards of thirty feet, and has since been twice turned over. But the most extraordinary scene is in a breach of porphyry called the grind of the Navir, where the waves have forced a passage, separating huge stones from the rock, and forcing them to a distance of nearly 200 feet. These fragments are accumulated in immense heaps, like the produce of a quarry.

In Lunna, several large detached rocks, called the stones of Stephouse, are found at some distance from the sea, having evidently been transported by the waters, and are the transported stones of geologists. The largest is about 23 feet high, and 96 in circumference.

Amongst the remarkable features of the mountain ridges of the earth, are the naked primitive summits of the highest

peaks, which from their freedom from secondary formations, and other marks of the sea, we may, with much probability, suppose to have been in the form of islunds in the antediluvian ocean and as all islands are but the summits of submarine elevations, it is natural to expect to find the lower parts of these mountains, which must have long been covered with the sea, bearing the same marks of secondary and sedimentary formations, mixed with sea shells, that are found in the lower levels of the earth.

As we descend from the higher grounds towards the plains, we are every where struck with the hills of various heights and forms, entirely composed of these secondary rocks, and often formed of nothing but rounded gravel, or dry sand, precisely in the state we now find these substances on our present sea-shores, and under the continued action of the waters.*

One cannot but be sensibly struck with the close similarity, of these elevations, both in substance and in form, to those minor elevations, and valleys, formed by the present sea, in many parts of its shores. One can even trace, on a minute scale, in those recent beds of sand and gravel, the principles of stratification and arrangement which we remark in many of the great secondary formations, and in the great beds of upper alluvial rocks and soils: and as we have already had occasion to remark, those principles are founded on the laws of gravitation, and of fluids, by the combined action of which, the raw materials of secondary formations, when once indiscriminately brought into the ocean by the rivers, in the manner before described, are sifted and arranged; and the various classes separately deposited, according to the action of the currents, and the eddies of the waters. It is by the action of those laws alone, that we can account for the great beds of

*The hills of Palestine are almost all formed of calcareous rocks, remarkable for their natural cavities. Those wonderful stones of which the temple of Jerusalem was built, were of this nature, abounding in fossil shells. The pyramids of Egypt are also built of a species of oolite, which is full of small fossil shells, which were once thought to be petrified lentils, and other seeds, left by the workmen employed on these stupendous fabrics. This is nearly as philosophical a way of accounting for them, as the idea of Voltaire, who thought the fossil fish found in Italy were the refuse thrown away by the Roman epicures.

+We familiarly make use of these same laws, on many occasions of every day occurrence. If we wish to separate any dry ar

sand upon one part of a coast, all equal in grain, and perfectly free from earthy particles: on another part of the same coast, and, perhaps, at no great distance, we find a similar extent of rolled gravel, almost entirely free from sand: on a third, a bed of the purest clay, perfectly free from both; and, perhaps, on a fourth, an immense accumulation of sea shells.

If, then, we allow for the action of those laws in the depth of the ocean, only on a scale infinitely more enlarged, and proportioned to the extent, both of the material and the agent, we shall find a much more easy and rational means of accounting for the geological phenomena on the surface of the globe, than all the wild theories yet formed by philosophy have been able to produce; and having this high additional value, that instead of opposing both history and reason, we follow the well defined track of both.

The most common source of error in forming our ideas on the formation of secondary rocks and soils, is our measuring the works performed by the unceasing action of the laws of nature, by the small and contracted scale of our own actions. Thus we almost instantly conclude, on observing a calcareous formation some hundreds of feet in depth, that it must have required some prodigiously long period of time to accumulate such a mass; whereas, when we consider the action of one great river, such as the Amazon, or the St. Lawrence, (remarkable, as all the American rivers are, for its muddiness, and tinging the ocean for 60 or 70 leagues from its mouth,) for a hundred years, and bearing, night and day, its prodigious load of mud into the sea, from whence it never returns; we must perceive that our ideas on such subjects are, in general, much too confined, and stand greatly in need of revision and correction. It is not yet ascertained to what depth it may be necessary to probe, before we come to the primitive surface; but it is highly probable, if not certain, that if we allow a mean thickness of one mile, for the whole secondary formations of our present dry lands, we shall be considerably over-rating their actual extent. We know that the most lofty peaks

ticles in the form of a powder, but of irregular grain, we naturally shake it with a lateral motion, when the different sizes and weights of the particles become arranged; the finer always being found at the bottom. Every sportsman must be familiar with this law of gravity, as it is well demonstrated in the accidental mixtures of both powder and shot of different grains, which it is often necessary to separate.