FAIRHOLME ON GEOLOGY. 219 



bed formed of this debris was of not less extent than 300 acres ; the greater part was 

 covered with thick woods, and this secondary formation is every year increasing in 

 the same proportion ; so that, as the lake is not here 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 first, and this must always be in 

 great confusion. This 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 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 pebble and sand, found in lakes, are never formed in the lakes themselves} 

 as they 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, of 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." Page 126, Note. 



To those who adopt the untenable theory, that the causes at present 

 in operation are sufficient to account for all the appearances to be 

 observed on the surface of the globe, the following fact seems to be 

 somewhat unanswerable, even if we grant them thousands, or even 

 millions of years. 



" There cannot exist a doubt," says Mr. Fairholme, " that, though England be 

 now separated from France, by a distance of from twenty to forty miles, and that 

 distance be now occupied by the sea, the whole intervening space, and a great 

 extent of both countries, form one contiguous secondary formation of chalk, of 

 which the basins of Paris, London, and the Isle of Wight, so well known to geolo- 

 gists, form a part. It is the opinion of some, whose ideas in geology are quite un- 

 fettered 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 2,000 years as to warrant 



