226 Diluvial Action. 



Alps and elsewhere have not been generalized rather more than 

 they will bear, whether the tilts and upliftings may not have 

 taken place bit by bit at various epochs, and whether, if the se- 

 cular refrigeration of the globe cannot be estabhshed, and cen- 

 tral heat be an ignis fatuus^ his attention may not be usefully 

 directed to more partial but better ^authenticated sources of dis- 

 turbance and elevation. ({*»§ "^o v- 



Allow me, in conclusion, to say a few words upon a subject 

 in connexion with which my name has of late been brought for- 

 ward much more prominently than I could have desired, — I 

 mean Diluvial Action. 



Some fourteen years ago I advanced an opinion, founded al- 

 together upon physical and geological considerations, that the 

 entire earth had, at an unknown period, (as far as that word im- 

 plies any determinate portion of time), been covered by one 

 general but temporary deluge. The opinion was not hastily 

 formed. My reasoning rested on the facts which had then come 

 before me. My acquaintance with physical and geological na- 

 ture is now extended ; and that more extended acquaintance 

 would be entirely wasted upon me^ if the opinions which it will 

 no longer allow me to retain, it did not also induce me to rectify. 

 New data have flowed in, and, with the frankness of one of my 

 predecessors, I also now read my recantation. 



The varied and accurate researches which have been instituted 

 of late years throughout and far beyond the limits of Europe, 

 all tend to this conclusion, — that the geological schools of Paris, 

 Freyberg, and London, have been accustomed to rate too low 

 the various forces which are still modifying, and always have 

 modified, the external form of the earth. What the value of 

 those forces may be in each case, or what their relative value, 

 will continue for many years a subject of discussion ; but that 

 their aggregate effect greatly surpasses all our early estimates, is, 

 I believe, incontestibly established. To Mr Lyell is eminently 

 due the merit of having awakened us to a sense of our error in 

 this respect. The vast mass of evidence which he has brought 

 together, in illustration of what may be called Diurnal Geology, 

 convinces me, that if, five thousand years ago, a deluge did 

 sweep over the entire globe, its traces can no longer be dis- 

 tinguished from more modern and local disturbances. The. 



