EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES 

 PROFESSOR T. H. HUXLEY 



[From "Physiography," New York, D. Appleton & Co.Q 



RAIN and river, frost and thaw, wind and 

 wave, however much they may differ among 

 themselves, agree in this that they are, upon 

 the whole, slow and certain agents of destruction. 

 All work in the same direction, persistently at- 

 tacking the solid land and sweeping away its 

 superficial substance. Not that a particle of 

 this substance is annihilated. Every grain 

 stolen from the land is sooner or later carefully 

 deposited somewhere in the sea. But, still, this 

 gradual transference of matter, from land to- 

 water, must ultimately result in the lowering of 

 the general level of the land to that of the sea by 

 the action of the rain and rivers; and, in the 

 subsequent paring down of the plain, thus 

 formed, to the depth of which marine denuda- 

 tion becomes insensible. If, therefore, no hind- 

 rance were offered to the action of these agents, 

 not only would a time come when every foot of 

 the British Isles would be buried beneath the sea; 

 but, inasmuch as the volume of the sea is very 

 much greater than that of the land which rises 

 above the sea-level, if sufficient time were granted 

 all the dry land in the world would ultimately 

 disappear beneath one universal sheet of water. 

 171 



