22 Mr. Fairholme on the Falls of Niagara 



tion, and then extending the analogy to the boundless conti- 

 nents of the earth, would it not be wiser to study this inter- 

 esting subject on the larger scale, and thus become enabled 

 to apply it with greater precision to the more confined di- 

 stricts in which we happen to be placed ? Let us hope that 

 the theories of geology are not yet so firmly established in the 

 public mind as to place this more consistent method entirely 

 beyond our reach. Let us, by such obvious steps as I have 

 now been endeavouring to establish, go backwards in our re- 

 searches. Let us first firmly establish the fact of a universal 

 deluge about the very period denoted by Scripture chrono- 

 logy. When this great point is admitted, and proved beyond 

 cavil (which is not supposing too much), let us candidly apply 

 to such diluvial waters, the full power and action of the tides, 

 and more especially of the currents, by which our seas are 

 kept in such continual circulation, and which are a natural 

 and necessary consequence of the rotatory motion of a solid 

 globe covered by a fluid ocean. Let this action be supposed 

 to have continued for the full period mentioned in the record ; 

 and on the restoration of the whole system, from its preter- 

 natural to its natural course, let us view the probable and 

 even unavoidable state of the new dry lands, not upon the 

 scale of our trifling rivers and floods in England, but upon 

 that vast and extended scale exhibited on the continents, which 

 is, however, only clearly pointed out to the mind's eye, by 

 the idea of the whole earth being surrounded by a boundless 

 and agitated ocean. We shall then think less than we now 

 do of some hundreds of feet of stratified aqueous deposits ; we 

 shall then perceive a consistent reason for our vast coal-fields, 

 with their vertical witnesses of rapid formation, to which I 

 have adverted in a former paper. Where the ocean's bed had 

 been rough and disordered, there we must expect to find a 

 proportional complication of sedimentary matter. Where, on 

 the other hand, it was more level and equal, (as in the case 

 of the American plains above described,) there we shall look 

 for such results, and such a simple system of stratification, as 

 are now presented to our contemplation. 



We find a distinct index, as to time, in the section worked 

 out by the cataract of Niagara. We find this section to have 

 been begun, as it naturally must have been, immediately sub- 

 sequent to the restoration of order, after the Mosaic Deluge. 

 We find the river cutting its own course through a marine 

 formation of an unknown depth, but extending beyond two 

 hundred fathoms, and which spreads continuously over plains 

 on which all Europe could be placed ; and, lastly, we find on 

 the surface of this marine formation, beds of bituminous coal 

 of the purest kind, and of wonderful extent, together with 



