GEOLOGY. 29 



heights in a liquid form, so as to lay in ruins the fairest 

 plains and cities below, ledges beautifully studded 

 with crystals, and mountains intersected by seams of 

 copper, tin, silver and gold, bear constant and infallible 

 testimony, not merely to the possibility, but the certainty, 

 that the most solid substances were once in a state of 

 solution, and that our planet has been shaken to its 

 centre by the war of its elements. 



CONSTANT CHANGES. 



History of the past, and observation of the present, 

 unite their testimony to the fact, that the changes the 

 earth has undergone since it came from the hand of its 

 Maker, have been constant, and to a great extent 

 gradual. Whatever construction shall be put upon the 

 word day, as used in the only history we have of the 

 creation of our earth, or however great might have 

 been the changes it suffered during the six days there 

 mentioned, no one can deny or doubt, that great and 

 constant changes have taken place upon its surface 

 since the period there referred to. The changes to 

 which it is daily subject at the present time, must be 

 visible to the most careless observer. The gradual but 

 powerful and irresistible hand of time, even in the short 

 space of ' threescore years and ten,' sometimes gives 

 to extensive districts a new aspect and a new character. 

 In many situations, rocks are constantly forming, in 

 others they are in a state of decomposition; in one case 

 the land is daily encroaching upon the sea, in another, 

 it is carried into the ocean, and gives place to a bay or 

 harbor. Volcanoes are pouring forth from the depths of 

 mountains melted lava, which by a sluggish but a pow- 

 erful and awful momentum, carry destruction in their 

 course, and bury flourishing cities in ruins, giving no 

 warning to their inhabitants to flee from their danger. 

 While in one case mountains are throwing from their 

 summits their own contents into the valleys beneath, in 

 another the ocean is throwing up islands from its depths. 

 In some instances, islands have arisen out of the sea in 

 a night. 



VOL. i. NO. n. 3* 



