134 Rev. Mr Smith 07i a Submarine Forest 



and destructive influence, operating violently upon any portion 

 of ground, the connection of that portion with the contiguous 

 district has been more or less broken, and the effects of the 

 earthquake so operating have remained to be traced in manifest 

 disruption and shifting of strata. But, as in Lincoln, the strata 

 are unbroken, it is to be presumed that no partially operating 

 cause has affected them. It is indeed the destruction of connec- 

 tion in corresponding strata, that enables the observer to ascribe 

 locality to an earthquake by its effects, or to set limits to any 

 cause operating on the surface of the earth ; and in finding the 

 bed of moss extending unbroken into the interior, it is wonder- 

 ful that this acute observer did not think of ascertaining his 

 reasons for prescribing extent to a cause which may affect a spot, 

 or convulse the universe. 



The frequency of any particular class of facts, is a general 

 measure of the cause to which they are referable ; and the 

 greater the number of circumstances are by which these facts 

 are assimilated, the stronger is the evidence afforded, that they 

 have arisen as a general consequence. To refer them to one or 

 to more precedents, to unite thetn together as the result of a ge- 

 neral state of things, or to ascribe them to a greater number of 

 precedents, operating at different times according to a variety 

 of contingent circumstances, is a second point, the determina- 

 tion of which does not depend upon the frequency of the facts, 

 but upon the circumstances by which they are connected, and 

 the traits of simultaneous formation by which they are assimi- 

 lated. The number of submarine forests already discovered in 

 such various circumstances, affords a presumptive evidence that 

 they do not owe their present station to any number of fortui- 

 tous events, acting locally, but to some cause which operated 

 widely over nature, neither destroying the relative position of 

 strata, nor tearing one part of the soil from another. Whether 

 the immersion of all these places happened at the same time, or 

 whether it was the result of the same general cause exerted at 

 various times, might be questionable, if these forests exhibited 

 nCT assimilating character to enable us to connect two or more of 

 them with any particular season ; but I should suppose that a 

 resemblance of this nature exists, which gives us as fair a foun- 

 dation for reasoning upon, as could jwssibly be expected in a 



