122 = Analysis, ¢-c. of Cordier’s Essay upon the 
ihe (brief) period when history commences,” (and when the a 
minution in the number of earthquakes at lengih permitted the 
earth to be habitable,) “ we may count six hundred earthquakes 
remarkable for violence or extent. The second. cause depends 
upon this, that the permanent diminution of the heat of the earth, 
no longer produces any sensible contraction in the subterranea 
regions near to the surface, while its effects still oe piace in 
the interior ; either augmenting the distance between the mass- 
es which have undergone the first effects of splenctiony or pro- 
ducing new solutions of continuity in the masses. We may add, 
that the slow formation of new strata in the interior must be sub- 
ordinate to the general law, by which liquids contract in bulk on 
es soli 
-ac 152:'The 
iy 
mn 
less flexible portions of the earth’s crust, are those 
he 
nearest the surface; for the transverse solutions of continuity in 
them have Jong ago acquired and lost their maximum of separa- 
ion. It isevident that the central forces. tend to b a 
together the elementary masses of the surface, in proportion as 
i ntracts more and more the bulk of the interior. T 
-yeos ch would act uniformly if the layers of the 
idated crust were concentric ; and if all the transverse so- 
lutions of continuity were found in planes perpendicular to the 
surface. But it is not so. The state of overthrow of the pri- 
mordial crust is such, that, considered in its full extent, I can only 
describe it as a mass ‘of fragments pressing sideways against = 
other, whose layers are all either vertical or much inclined, Sine 
this state of things took place, the obliquity of solutions of con- 
tinuity out of number, some ~ a of prodigious extent, for- 
~bids such an approach of elementary masses as shall be uniform, 
an SRE nate to the ce aired aameiction This appr oat has 
‘been re ed by a a of level, slight indeed, but sufficient 
to affect. poietiin surfaces of great extent. Many geological 
‘facts agree with this hy pothesis, We may take for granted that 
the effect still arpa although insensibly. If the “secular rise 
of the basin 0 e Baltic is constant, it may be explained; upon 
our | i c e 
See 
s de San anciens)- ee vrage 
: Egypte 5 Aczordig, to our notions, all that. part of the conti- 
nent of Africa experiences a depr ession ate to two or three 
: “centimetres every century,” 
other facts of oceanic retrocession ecileadlt: in the 
book enti itled | a a dia and gleswhere, aay be eal 
ea 2 
