produced hj the Action of the Ocmn, 23; 



It is obvious to imagine, and strictly consonant with all 

 our expcTience to believe, that a current of the ocean press- 

 ing with a weight and force of which we can form no esti-. 

 mate, and for a duration which eludes all calcuhtion, over 

 extensive tracts of sea beds, abounding in every variety of 

 inequality, must carry off immense quantities of materials, 

 and transport them to distant situations, where they will be 

 extensively precipitated in nearly the same order in which 

 they were taken up, and will, therefore, in their new situa- 

 tions, form other strata not greatly dissimilar from those 

 which were broken up. It will also readily occur, that all" 

 the superior eminences in the course of the current will 

 experience a far more extraordinary degree of force and vio-« 

 fence than those parts which lie lower ; and that in all these 

 eminences abounding in strata of rock, the fronts which face 

 the current will be laid bare and beaten into bold angular 

 abruptions, while the oprposite sides, protected by the emi- 

 nences, will fall off in gentle declivities, precisely similar to 

 what we actually observe in all the hilly districts of every 

 country, where the precipitous faces and declivous sides 

 so wonderfully coincide in the same respective direction. 

 This singular and interesting uniformity in the direction of 

 the abrupt and declivous sides of the elevations of almost 

 every country, frequently ranging to an unknown extent, 

 is entirely an effect which a vast marine current would ne- 

 cessarily produce on all the eminences in its course ; and it is, 

 I think, utterly inexplicable by any other natural agency. 



One of the principal currents with which we are acquaint- 

 ed, is that stupendous movement of waters in the Atlantic 

 Ocean which is naulically designated the Gulf Stream. It 

 oriffinates in the diurnal rotation and centrifugal force of the 

 earth, aided by the trade winds, giving the waters of the 

 main ocean an impulsive direction from east to west ; and a 

 portion of this vast movement being tinally impelled into the 

 Mexican Gulf, is glanced off from thence through the 

 Straits of Bahama, with an impetus which hurries it over a 

 breadth of fifty miles, at four miles an hour, to the far di- 

 stant banks of Newfoundland, where it can still he clearly 

 identified by its dark colour and superior temperature. In 



B 4 this 



