I.] THE SOIL OF THE FIELD. 45 



known, assume that such they are till someone gives 

 us a sound proof that they are not ; and say These 

 great plains of England and Scotland were probably 

 once covered by a shallow sea, and their soils made as 

 the soil of any tide-flat is being made now ? 



But you may kay, and most reasonably, ' ' The tide- 

 flats are just at the sea-level. The whole of the lowland 

 is many feet above the sea; it must therefore have been 

 raised out of the sea, according to your theory : and 

 what proofs have you of that ? " 



Well, that is a question both grand and deep, on 

 which I shall not enter yet ; but meanwhile, to satisfy 

 you that I wish to play fair with you, I ask you to 

 believe nothing but what you can prove for yourselves. 

 Let me ask you this : suppose that you had proof 

 positive that I had fallen into the river in the morning; 

 would not your meeting me in the evening be also 

 proof positive that somehow or other I had in the 

 course of the day got out of the river ? I think you 

 will accept that logic as sound. 



Now if I can give you proof positive, proof which 

 you can see with your own eyes, and handle with your 

 own hands, and alas ! often feel but too keenly with 

 your own feet, that the whole of the lowlands were once 

 beneath the sea; then will it not be certain that, some- 

 how or other, they must have been raised out of the sea 

 again ? 



And that I propose to do in my next paper, when 

 I speak of the pebbles in the street. 



Meanwhile I wish you to face fairly the truly grand 

 idea, which all I have said tends to prove true that 

 all the soil we see is made by the destruction of older 

 soils, whether soft as clay, or hard as rock ; that rain, 



