94 THE CHEMISTKY OF CREATION. 



cannot be distinctly separated from the other, 

 because both are mixed in a great measure to- 

 gether, it should not be lost sight of that the 

 natural processes which produce the alluvium, 

 and those which form vegetable soil or " mould," 

 are quite different, and must not be confounded 

 together. The subject, therefore, of the present 

 chapter, is the chemistry of vegetable soil, or 

 mould, and the method of its formation. 



Let us travel back in thought to the time when 

 the scenery we are now beholding exhibited a 

 very different aspect. Yonder river now rolling 

 down a channel, some twenty miles long, and 

 emptying itself into the sea, was then an impe- 

 tuous torrent, not a third of its present length. 

 Those green and fertile plains which ibrm the 

 smooth bottom of the valley, were then sub- 

 merged beneath the waters ; and from the spot 

 on which we now stand, the eye, as it looked 

 across to the rocks and hills on the other side, 

 would have seen only tossing waves, in the place 

 of waving corn. In a word, this valley did not 

 then exist, it was a beautiful bay, the waters of 

 the sea washing the foot of the hills and rocks, 

 which now hem it in ; and at its upper end the 

 torrent, formed by the water-shed of the distant 

 mountains inland, and of the hills around, poured 

 into the sea, bringing down mud, gravel, and 

 stones incessantly. 



