the sea this chalky mud is now being deposited; but there is considerable reason to suppose that it is not in the immediate neighbourhood of the present shores: for there, the currents seem to deposit sand in such immense quantities, as to render the navigation both difficult and dangerous. We no where hear of a muddy bottom: every thing is either sand or solid chalk. And here we have numerous examples of the changes that are gradually effected in the form and structure of the bed of the ocean. Every old pilot, well acquainted with the difficult navigation of this part of the coast, can relate instances, within his own memory, where the shifting nature of the sand banks renders the most watchful attention to the landmarks and buoys so necessary. The form and extent of the fatal Goodwin sands have undergone considerable changes within a comparatively short period of time. They now extend many miles in length, and are formed of so pure a sand, that scarcely a shell is to be found upon them, and no gravel whatever. The ramifications of this bank, extending northward towards the mouth of the Thames, are all formed of an equally pure sand, which is dry and hard at low water.* Now, as all this sand is a primitive crystalline formation, having no mixture of calcareous earths, except, perhaps, particles of broken sea shells, in small quantity, we must conclude, that it is brought from other parts, by the currents, and that the lighter and finer muddy deposits, which are not found so commonly on that coast, are carried off and deposited in some of the depths of the ocean.

Wherever these secondary formations may be in the act of deposition, we could feel no surprise, if, on examining them in a dry and hard state, we should discover, embedded in them, the shells of such crustaceous animals as may inhabit these depths; and if we should even find the remains

*It is traditionally reported, that this formidable sand bank, in which the wreck of many a tall ship has been buried, was once a cultivated island, and part of the property of the Earl of Godwin.

The ancient Roman castle of Richborough, about a mile north of Sandwich, was once a sea port, though it is now fully two miles from the shore.. At that period, the Isle of Thanet was really an island, being separated from the main land by a channel, at one end of which was Richborough, and at the other Reculvers, both Roman stations, under the names of Ritupium and Rigulbium. In the Romney Marsh, on the south coast of Kent, there was another Roman port, which is now several miles from the shore.

of fish, or "creeping thing," with which we were unacquainted, we should not feel justified in concluding that they were not the inhabitants of our present seas, or not of existing species, because our research had not yet penetrated their deep abodes. For we may rest assured, that however minutely we may scan the dry land, and its various productions, there are treasures in the great deep, that are for ever placed far beyond the eye of the most active naturalist.

But let us now turn our thoughts towards the flowing Thames, and observe the continual operations carried on by its unwearied waters. We shall find them charged with a load of earthy matter, collected, in their course, from the various formations through which the river flows. This burden must necessarily be of the most indiscriminate character; but these various bodies are to be deposited in an element where each species of importation is most exactly sifted, and every thing is arranged according to its own particular class. The muddy, the sundy, or the gravelly bodies, which are thus in constant motion downwards, from the highest sources of the river, are all at length submitted to the action of those laws of NATURE, which regulate the deep. We cannot suppose that all this earthy matter remains in the form of banks and shoals, near the immediate mouth of the river itself; for if this were the case, that mouth must long since have been completely blocked up. But, although we always find rivers closed, more or less, with a bar, occasioned by the contending action of the tide, and the stream; yet we do not perceive that bar materially to increase; for the exact balance is, at all times, kept up by the constant removal of superfluous matter, by the action of the currents of the neighbouring ocean. *

* As an instance of the power with which rivers act, in filling up inland lakes, and in adding to the accumulations in the bed of the sea, the following example may serve to give an idea.

The river Kander, a mountain torrent of no great size, rushes down the valley of Kanderthal, in the Canton Burne, in Switzerland, and enters the lake of Thoun, about four miles from the town so called. About a hundred years ago, this stream did not flow into the lake, from which its course was cut off by a ridge of diluvial hills of several hundred feet in height, stretching along the south side of the lake, in a north-westerly direction. This diluvial ridge, extending more than ten miles in length, is entirely composed of rounded gravel, or pudding stone.

In consequence of the mischief done by the overflowing of the

If this, then, is the system now in action, on a small portion of our own shores, to what an extent must it be going on around our whole island. And if we extend our view, and consider the more gigantic scale of the rivers on the con

Kander, to a great extent of valuable meadow land, in its course to join the Arr, ten miles below Thoun, which was its natural course, a spirited plan was proposed and adopted, for cutting a subterraneous passage for the river, through the above mentioned ridge, at a place where it approached the lake within about a mile, and thus admitting it into its bed. This passage was cut in the beginning of the last century (about 1715.) The descent was rapid, from the lake being considerably lower than the old course of the river. At this period, the depth of the lake was in proportion to the steep hills forming its shore. The Kander had not long followed its new subterraneous course, when it greatly enlarged the artificial tunnel, and hurried great quantities of gravel into the lake. The rapidity of the torrent in a few years enlarged its course, till at length the whole superstructure gave way, and fell in; so that there is now a most romantic wild glen, where, a century ago, there was smooth pasture and wood lands. The effects of the torrent soon became apparent in the lake an immense quantity of gravel, and every species of rock, was carried in by the current, and lodged in its bed. In 1829, when I lived in that neighbourhood, the bed formed of this debris, was of not less extent than 300 acres; the greater part was covered with thick wood; and this secondary formation is every year increasing in the same proportion; so that, as the lake is not there of great breadth, there is every prospect of a rapid and most material change taking place in its form. I have sounded the lake at the present mouth of the Kander, and, as I found no bottom with a line of about a hundred feet, we are certain that this mountain stream has, in little more than one century, produced a secondary bed of mixed materials, of fully three hundred acres, and at least one hundred feet in depth.

One circumstance, however, is worthy of remark, with respect to such secondary formations in fresh water lakes; and that is, that in consequence of the absence of tides and currents, and that constant lateral movement kept up in the bed of the sea, we never discover in them that stratified regularity so remarkable within the action of the tide. The mixture of mineral bodies carried into an inland lake, remains, therefore, exactly as deposited at the first, and this must always be in great confusion. The difference of effect, may, perhaps, be safely taken as a guide, in judging of what some geologists have called salt and fresh water formations; and if this idea be correct, we have an additional evidence against the extraordinary theories of Cuvier, who supposed the well defined strata of the Paris basin to have been occasioned by the alternate occupation of that basin by salt and fresh water. The rounded pebbles and sand, found in lakes, are never formed in the lakes themselves, as they

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tinents, and the more direct influence of the great currents upon their vast importations, we shall find a cause fully sufficient for the formation of secondary deposits of great depth and variety, in the course of a comparatively short space of time.

are in the bosom of the sea, but are carried into them by the rivers nearly in the shape in which we find them.

It may, therefore, be safely assumed, that the regular strata of sand, or gravel, or of fine clay, found in mosses, and shallow lakes, if quite distinct from other strata, must have been formed at the period of the deluge, under the influence and by the agency of the action of the sea.

CHAPTER VI.

The Deluge.-Traditional Evidence of that Event.-Erroneous Ideas commonly entertained respecting it.-Distinctness of Scripture on the Subject.-Evidence from Scripture.—Evidence from the Ancient, though Apocryphal, Book of Enoch.— Theories of Philosophy on the Subject.—The most probable Cause of that Destructive Event.

In the former part of this work, and in taking a general view of the phenomena presented to our observation on the surface of our earth, a confident hope was held out, that we should be able fully to account for all those phenomena, by considering, with a candid and unprejudiced judgment, the three great events recorded in history, viz. 1st, the creation of the world; 2d, the formation of a bed for the gathering together of the waters, together with the action of the laws of nature within that bed, for upwards of sixteen centuries; and lastly, the deluge, as described by Moses in the book of Genesis. We have already, at some length, considered the two first of these great events; and in the last of the two, we have found an unquestionable source of very extensive secondary formation, and sufficient to account for a large proportion of all those, actually existing, on the primitive surface of the earth. We have thus satisfactorily explained the formation of the transition rocks containing few or no fossil remains; and also accounted for the early sand stone, and calcareous formations, together with the abundance of fossil sea shells found in the latter.

We now, therefore, come to the consideration of that great event by which so complete a revolution has occurred upon the earth, and by means of which alone we are now enabled to