22 ^n Inquiry into the Terrestrial Phceuomcna 



sponding agreement in the conformation of its beds ; and so 

 fully has the identity in both cases been established, that, 

 were any extent of the present bottom of the ocean laid dry, 

 and allowed a sufficient time to consolidate and acquire a 

 vegetable covering, there can be no rjuestioa that it would 

 exhibit all the diversified exterior, and ail the internal con- 

 formation, of our present inhabited countries. 



We also know that the bottom of the sea is continually 

 receiving large accessions of earthy and other materials, con- 

 veyed into it by rivers and land floods. Even in some of the 

 rivers of our own country, the turbid waters of a summer's 

 flood may be seen distinctly spreading themselves out for 

 miles after their entrance into the sea; and, were an estima- 

 tion practicable, the annual quantity spread over the beds of 

 the neighbouring sea, by such a river only, would be found 

 very considerable indeed : but if we take into the estimation 

 the accumulated produce of all the rivers on the globe, the 

 annual accession must be immense ; and this increase, re- 

 peated through a succession of innumerable ages, must add 

 incalculable masses of fresh and various, material to extensive 

 tracts beneath the sea. It may be worth remarking by the 

 way, that nearly the whole of the materials carried by this 

 mode into the sea is from the surface, and consequently 

 from the richest part of the soil, abounding in a large pro- 

 portion of vegetable and animal remains ; and it w ould cer- 

 tainly be at express variance with every other provident and 

 oeconomical provision of Nature, to imagine that this daily 

 deterioration of our lands has no other ultimate purpose 

 than to incumber the fathomless deeps with endless suc- 

 cession of superfluous waste. 



But though this vast addition to the beds of the ocean is 

 df itself a sufficiently important consideration in the present 

 inquiry, it is, I conceive, comparatively with other agency, 

 but a trivial source of terrestrial alteration ; and I think we 

 can only look to the numerous and impetuous marine cur- 

 rents, sweeping with ponderous attrition, and irresistible 

 force, over the abraded beds of the sea, for the cause of these 

 stupendous phaenomena, which arrest our attention and ele- 

 vate our astonishment in geological research. 



It 



