r

deposited, simply in the state of dry sand, mud, or gravel, and equally loose and friable as they must have been at the period of their deposition, we should find them cemented together in the most solid and compact manner. All the intervening spaces between the angles of the grosser particles, filled up with a stony matter, and the whole assuming the appearance and qualities of solid rock.*

Where cavities had, by any accident, been formed, either in the first deposition, or, as would be more probable, in the course of desiccation, we should frequently find that wonderful and unaccountable law in operation, by which fluids assume, in drying, a crystalline form. As the primitive ocean had, by the command of the Almighty, produced, "abundantly the moving creature that hath life;" and as many of these creatures were destined to become the permanent inhabitants of the deep, we should feel no surprise, in every where discover

* We are sometimes enabled to form some idea of the operations in the great laboratory of nature, and can thus trace, in some remarkable instances, the action of this petrifying power. One of the most remarkable of these instances is described by Mr. Morier as existing in Persia, not far from Maragha. A mineral spring issues from the earth in bubbles, and falls into a basin of about 15 feet in diameter. On flowing over the edges of this basin, the water spreads over the ground, forming numerous ponds and plashes, and in these it becomes hard, and produces that beautiful transparent stone, commonly called Tabreez marble. "The process of petrifaction," says Mr. Morier, "may be traced from its first beginning to its termination. In one part, the water is clear; in a second, it appears thicker, and stagnant; in a third, quite black; and, in the last stage, it is white, like hoar frost. The petrified ponds look like frozen water; a stone slightly thrown upon them breaks the crust, and the black water exudes. But where the operation is complete, a man may walk upon the surface without wetting his shoes. A section of the stony mass appears like sheets of rough paper, in accumulated layers. Such is the constant tendency of this water to become stone, that the bubbles become hard, as if, by a stroke of magic, they had been arrested, and metamorphosed into marble." Instances nearly as remarkable, are seen at the falls of Terni in Italy, at the famous hot springs in Iceland, in Derbyshire, and in many other places.

"I saw," says Saussure, "on the sea shore, near the Pharo de Messina, sands which were loose and friable, when lodged by the waves on the shore, but which, by means of the calcareous juice infiltrated into them by the sea, gradually becomes so hard, as to be used as millstones. This process takes place in the course of a very few years."-Comp. Estim. vol. ii. p. 45.

ing more or less of animal remains, mixed up with the mineral deposits of their own proper element. But as the fish of the sea, as well as the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the field, are guided by the laws of instinct for their self-preservation; and as instinctive self-preservation would lead them, when alive, to keep upon the surface of these gradually forming deposites, unless when overpowered or buried by any unusual accumulation, we should seldom expect to find more than the shelly remains of the crustaceous animals.* Even these would be looked for, but in small numbers, in the first marine deposits; and they would afterwards be found gradually more abundant, as the bed of the sea became more loaded with the remains of past generations.† We could have little expectation of discovering the remains of fish, and still less, those of quadrupeds, in these gradually formed sea deposites; for though race after race, of the finny tribes, must have perished from the very first, and the bodies of many land animals, and even of human beings, must have been conveyed to the ocean, in the common course of events, before the flood; yet, that wonderful law of God, by which so just a balance is preserved throughout the animal creation, would have prevented almost a possibility of the remains of the dead being covered up, or preserved for no sooner does a fish perish, than its body disappears among the voracious tribes of the deep; and those of terrestrial animals could rarely meet with any other fate. bones & ale

* In the course of considerable experience in the search of fossil shells in various secondary formations, I have been led to the conclusion that these fossil remains must, in by far the greater number of cases, have been embedded after the death of the fish that inhabited them. The chalk formation is especially remarkable for the perfect state of preservation in which it renders up its fossil treasures; and they are often found retaining the remains of their most delicate parts, as perfect as when first embedded. In the case of the echini, for example, many of which are, in the natural state, covered with spines, like a hedgehog, I have found, in a few of the most perfect fossil specimens, just sufficient indication of a spine, to convince me how complete they would have been, had they been buried in a living state. But as they are almost always, more or less, stripped of their spines, it appears certain that they must have been exposed to the friction of the waters, in an empty state, before they were covered up. The fractured and disordered position of fossils in general, also tend to the same opinion.

+ See page 55, note.

Fish are rarely found in a fossil state in the lower secondary

On a closer inspection of some of the finer earthy deposits, having every appearance of having once been a tenacious mud, we should find them variously loaded with these crustaceous remains. We should also find, that the whole mass had become impregnated with a calcareous quality, which was not to be found in any of the formations generally considered primitive; and which, therefore, must have been acquired by some of those chemical laws at all times in action in the world. We should find some difficulty in coming to any positive conclusion with respect to the original cause of this calcareous property; more especially, when we discover a similar calcareous principle in the shells and bones of both terrestrial and marine animals.*

The deposits of salt which we might discover, would, in no way, surprise us, having had connexion with waters of the same briny character. But the question, whether the saltness of the ocean be derived from the mineral, or the mineral be a chemical deposit from the water, would probably lead us out of the plain beaten track we had determined to pursue, and should, therefore, be declined, and left for future investigation, as not in any way affecting the general question.†

In the whole of this general review of the secondary formations, however, we should be deeply impressed with this remarkable fact, that in all these various formations, in which formations; but the fact occasionally occurs, as might be expected, as exceptions to what may be called a general rule. They are, however, found in great abundance in diluvial formations, as we shall have occasion to perceive, in considering the effects of the deluge.

*The component parts of bones are chiefly four; namely, earthy salts, fat, gelatine, and cartilage. The earthy salts are four in number, 1st. Phosphate of lime, which constitutes by far the greater part of the whole. 2d. Carbonate of lime. 3d. Phosphate of magnesia. 4th. Sulphate of lime.”—Edin. Encyclop. Chemistry, p. 138.

"Lime has been known from the remotest ages. It abounds in every part of the earth, constituting immense ranges of rocks and mountains. It may be obtained by burning calcareous spars, and certain marbles. Oyster shells, when burnt, yield it nearly pure."Ibid. p. 45.

The saline principle so generally found in all animal productions, would incline us to refer all saltness to the great laboratory of nature, and not to attribute it solely to marine origin. With regard to salt, as a solid mineral body, I shall have occasion to make some remarks upon it, in a subsequent chapter. [See chap. 8.)

the laws of chemistry had been observed to have acted so powerfully, and in some of which even crystallization appeared, in many cases, to have taken place, we should discover no trace of such formations as we had previously remarked in primitive rocks, which we had been taught to believe were originally crystallized in an aqueous fluid of the very self same character.

We should no where find granite, or any other primitive rock, amongst the secondary chemical deposits; and we should consider this fact alone, as a positive confirmation of the conclusion we had before come to by a different process, viz. that the primitive creations never could have arisen in an aqueous fluid, by the mere laws of nature.

It is scarcely necessary to observe, that the case which has been here put hypothetically, of having it in our power to make this actual survey of the bed of the former ocean, has in fact occurred; as is sufficiently testified by the numerous phenomena presented to us, over nearly the whole surface of the present dry land.

But in order to form a more defined idea of the mode of secondary formations, let us, for a moment, consider the action of these same laws by which we have supposed them to have been formed, as they may, at any time, be observed going on under our eyes. Let us station ourselves on a part of the sea coast, near the mouth of any great river, and consider how the laws of nature are continually acting. We must, however, in the absence of extensive primitive coasts, which are now scarcely any where to be found, content ourselves with illustrations from the secondary and alluvial formations with which our present shores are loaded; so that the secondary deposits, now in progress, are formed from secondary rocks, instead of from primitive, as the antediluvian deposits must have been.

Let us station ourselves, for instance, on that point of our own shores, formed by the Isle of Thanet, where we have, to the south, a great extent of chalky coast, and to the north, the mouth of our noble Thames. And, first, let us observe the action of the atmosphere on the chalky cliffs of this island. There are few of the secondary formations more easily affected than the chalk, by the alternate moisture and dryness of our climate and this is materially assisted by the chemical action of the salt from the spray of the sea. In the spring of the year, when the heat of the sun becomes powerful, and

evaporates the abundant moisture imbibed by the chalk during the winter, the whole surface of the cliff, as it were, exfoliates; and large masses, becoming detached, are precipitated on the sands below, in a crumbling heap of ruin. The very first succeeding tide that flows, begins the work of transportation; and the waters retire, on the ebb tide, loaded with the finest particles of this chalky ruin. But though this insatiable enemy retires white with its booty, and sullies, for a considerable distance, the purity of the ocean, yet, on every succeeding flow, it again advances empty handed: the flowing waves are as transparent as if no chalk existed on the whole coast. A few weeks or months of this never-ceasing action gradually diminishes even the most solid portions of the chalk; and, at length, the sands are as pure and as free from earthy matter, as if no fall had ever taken place. Now, though we may liken this gradual disappearance of the chalk to that of salt or sugar immersed in water, there is this most material difference; that in the one case, the matter is actually dissolved, and held in solution as long as the moisture continues; but in the other, the indissoluble earthy particles of the chalk are carried off bodily by the waves; and are only held in suspension, until, by their own weight, they sink to the bottom of the sea, and are added, in the form of mud, to beds that must have been in the course of formation ever since that great revolution which placed the chalky bottom of the antediluvian sea in a situation to be thus acted upon as the high coast of the postdiluvian ocean. *

It is not so easy to determine in what part of the bed of

* There cannot exist a doubt, that, though England be now separated from France by a distance of from 20 to 40 miles, and that distance be now occupied by the sea, the whole intervening space, and a great extent of both countries, form one continuous secondary formation of chalk, of which the basins of Paris, London, and the Isle of Wight, so well known to geologists, form a part. It is the opinion of some, whose ideas in geology are quite unfettered by history, as to time, that the two countries were once united, and that the separation has been effected by gradual decay, from the action of the sea upon a narrow isthmus. But history will not bear us out in this idea; for we know, from certain landmarks, which existed many centuries ago, such as the Roman part of Dover Castle, and other ancient buildings on the coast, that the decay of the cliffs, though constant and gradual, has not been such, in the last 2000 years, as to warrant any such conclusion, supposing the deluge to have taken place, as we have reason to know it did, about 4000 years ago.