214 Sir A. Crichlon 07i the [March, 



distance, which corresponds with the relative situation in which 

 the broken parts are found. That a stratum of a half liquid 

 precipitate should be formed of nearly equal thickness in a 

 highly inclined position is incredible ; and we, therefore, have a 

 right to infer, that this position in which it is commonly found 

 was one into which it had been forced long after its perfect 

 consolidation by the operation of some powerful causes. 



There is one which may be reasonably conjectured to have 

 exerted a great influence in producing the effect, — I mean the 

 elastic vapours confined between the intensely heated metallic 

 nucleus and the newly-formed crust of oxides. This may have 

 acquired a force greater than the pressure which was acting on 

 it, and to have burst its fetters, rupturing and overthrowing the 

 superincumbent strata in the same manner as we find in our 

 days whole tracts of land overthrown by subterraneous agencies 

 of a probably similar kind. It is to this period that we must 

 refer the elevation of continents and mountains, on the summits 

 and surface of which we find proofs of their submarine origin; 

 and it is to this period of general convulsion that we are also to 

 look for the subsidences of other parts, forming the greater 

 basins into which the ocean retreated, and the lesser basins 

 which afterwards were filled with fresh water torrents and rain. 

 But at this period of time the great work of creation had made 

 but little progress, and the only animals which existed belonged 

 to the sea. None appear to have been destroyed by this great 

 catastrophe, and if we find a difference between the zoophitea 

 and marine moUuscse which were deposited afterwards, there is 

 no way of accounting for the phenomenon but in the diminution 

 of temperature which was gradually taking place. 



Since this period of disorder until the appearance of the dilu- 

 vian boulder stones and gravel, I do not know of any geological 

 appearances which have the most distant resemblance to the 

 wrecks of a deluge. The work of creation, on the contrary, 

 appears to have proceeded with great regularity, varying and 

 multiplying the living forms according as the temperature 

 varied, and as dry land and alluvial soils were pioduced. 



It is impossible to deny that many ancient continents and 

 alluvial deposits have been fiequently overflowed both by salt 

 and fresh water. 'They have left indisputable testimonies of the 

 fact. But these were all of them partial in comparison with the 

 two events described, or with the deluge ; and that the animals, 

 the remains of which they covered with new deposits, were 

 dead before the inundations, appears from the perfect state of 

 their skeletons. 



When to these considerations are added the late remarks of 

 Prof. Buckland on his discovery of the dens cf antediluvian 

 hyaenas, &c. in this country, no doubt can be left on the mind 

 of an unprejudiced person, that the animals of hot climates, the 

 fossil bones of which are found distributed over both continents., 



