DOMAIN XII. VOLCANIC. 



at a certain crust, the water gushes out 

 with prodigious violence. If this vast 

 chasm, therefore, be covered with such a 

 lasting shell of fertile land> it is easy to 

 conceive the existence of similar cavities in 

 many parts of this globe. For we are not 

 to imagine that the immense mass which 

 forms the nucleus, and which from its 

 gravity would appear to be iron, presents 

 a uniform surface ; but may, on the con- 

 trary, bear fissures deeper than the ocean, 

 and asperities or precipices higher than 

 mountains. Hence the grand observation 

 of Saussure, his refoulements*, may be con- 

 strued into a subsidence of the beds at one 

 extremity, owing to irregularities on the 

 surface of the nucleus, and which of course 

 elevated them at the other extremity; while 

 the secondary rocks, the level or horizontal 

 of Werner, finding the asperities already 



* " Examiner en ge'ne'ral si les couches presentent des indices de 

 soulevements, ou de refoulements violents, qui aient change* leur 

 situation primitive ; ou si, au contraire tous, et les redressements 

 meme des couches, peuvent s'expliquer par desim pies affaissements.'* 

 2314. 



VOL. II. T 



