in reply to Mr. R. C, Taylor. 285 



They prove the immediate connection between their native 

 floods and the German Ocean, by their own close resemblance 

 to the shelly tribes that now frequent the shores of the latter. 



The successive stages of this revolution are here brought 

 down by the records of natui'e to the period, from which hi- 

 storical documents attest its further progress. The change 

 which is so incontrovertibly established by the latter, is at this 

 point combined with, and, if I may so express myself, dove- 

 tailed into the operations displayed by the former ; there is no 

 break in the train of events — no suspension of the laws which 

 regulate the material universe — no interruption of the euno- 

 my of creation ; but every link in the chain of evidence is so 

 well adapted and so firmly riveted, that if Mr. Taylor could 

 even succeed in identifying these remains with those of the 

 Crag pits of Suffolk and the Cliffs of Cromer, he would de- 

 monstrate, not the fallacy of my conclusions with respect to 

 the eastern valleys of Norfolk, but his own error in assigning 

 to that stratum so high and obscure an antiquity. The lit- 

 toral character of these shells, the drifted substances intermin- 

 gled with them, and the arrangement of the whole in parallel 

 lines on both sides of what is admitted to have been once an 

 aestuary, — these circumstances all support my conclusion, that 

 there formerly existed at this elevation a beach or strand, and 

 consequently, that the sea was there stationary for a consider- 

 able space of time during its retreat. This opinion is power- 

 fully confirmed by numerous coincident traces of the same 

 fact, not only in various situations on the shores of our own 

 island, but also in distant countries. I purposely abstain from 

 pointing them out now, as I am engaged in preparing for the 

 press a detailed account of them, with geological and histo- 

 rical observations on the change of level that has taken place 

 in different seas. When the facts which I have collected in 

 reference to this question are brought properly to bear upon 

 it, — when it is seen that similar deposits of recent shells have 

 been found in the beds and on the sides of other valleys, where 

 no Crug stratum has ever been thought to exist, and even on 

 the face of the oldest primitive rocks, — it may perhaps excite 

 some surprise that so manifest and undeniable a truth should 

 ever have been doubted. The stigma of heresy, which now 

 attaches to my opinions, will, as I confidently anticipate, be 

 then successfully wiped off"; and it will be found that I have 

 not been amusing the public with a fanciful and untenable pro- 

 jxjsition, but that 1 have been laying the corner-stone of a 

 solid basis for future and more extended intjuiry. 



XL VI. Dc- 



