Geological Travels in the North of Europe, &c. % 



M. De Luc to the above subjects, and that we might hear, 

 what his long experience in studying nature, and in the 

 consideration and discussion of geological systems, would 

 offer, on this new hypothesis, for explaining the disrup- 

 tions of the strata, the transportation of alluvial matters, and 

 others of the vast and most mysterious operations, to which 

 the terraqueous globe has been subjected. 



But it is perhaps high time that I should mention the 

 remaining subjects of the volume, which I undertook to ex- 

 plain, and as soon as possible conclude tins desultory letter. 



The 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22d propositions, or 

 heads, are employed on the question, Whether the gulfs 

 and steep cliffs on the coasts of the ocean, were occasioned 

 ly its action P At page 333 it is said, " that the inden- 

 tations of the coasts have not been formed by the sea, but 

 are simply the extremities of vales, or other original in- 

 flections of the surface, which lay below the level of the 

 sea, when it came first to occupy its present bed;" and 

 in numerous parts of the volume before me, Facts are ad- 

 duced, to show that, so far from the sea being now capa- 

 ble of excavating gulfs, such are almost uniformly in the 

 process of Jill big up. 



I am yet by no means satisfied, with the evidence 

 adduced, to decide the other part of this proposition as 

 M. De Luc has done, viz. that the cliffs on the sea-shore 

 did not originate with the action of tfce sea. A neces-' 

 sary consequence of numerous valleys having opened in- 

 to the sea below its present level, as stated above by 

 M. De Luc, is, that separating ridges or points of hills 

 equally numerous, projected or run out into the sea; and 

 from having often and attentively observed, the great ef- 

 fect which waves propelled by a high wind, oblique to the 

 shore in particular, have upon all projecting points, and 

 the powerful tendency which the beach or strand has tb 

 assume a regular line without sudden indentations, in al- 

 most all situations, I am inclined to ascribe to the waves a 

 power, of commencing and carrying on the ravages which 

 most points of hills projecting into the sea have suffered : 

 yet, without at all invalidating or calling in question the 

 Mosaic chronology, which M. De Luc is so properly in- 

 tent on supporting ; and I am further disposed to assume, 

 that so correct an observer and reasoner as M. De Luc, 

 could not have overlooked these circumstances, had he not 

 too much relied on his position, of the original marine clifls 

 or fecades, being the mere effect of the subsidences an& 

 angular motions of the strata : and not duly considering, 



A 4 that 



