Geological Origin of the Present Scenery of Scotland 2 1 



whether more quickly or not, it was by the same superficial agencies 

 of waste as are still wearing down the surface of the earth, that 

 this country had its valley-systems determined. We see certain 

 results which could only be achieved by the denudation or erosion 

 of the country, and it is of no consequence to the reasoning, what 

 the rate of this erosion may have been. It must have been per- 

 formed by some agencies working on the surface, and the only 

 agencies of which we have any knowledge or conception, are the 

 rains, frosts, streams, waves, and other forces, that are playing the 

 same part still. 



In fine, when for the vague popular notion that primeval earth- 

 quakes tossed up our hills, and rent open our valleys, we adopt 

 the Huttonian explanation, which I have tried to lay before the 

 reader in the foregoing pages, we are led to perceive that the shap- 

 ing of the land has been accomplished by no random method, but 

 after that calm orderly pattern so characteristic of nature's opera- 

 tions. Mountain and glen become eloquent not of terrestrial con- 

 vulsion, but of the slow silent progress of the same powers of 

 waste, by which from year to year their outlines are still changed. 

 And if in this long and stately march of events our finite faculties 

 can descry " no sign of a beginning, no prospect of an end," it is 

 because man has taken his place upon a scene, wherein cycle after 

 cycle, decay and renovation succeed each other — not less markedly 

 upon the solid framework of the land than among the tribes of 

 plants and animals by which the land is inhabited. 



