ii.] THE PEBBLES IN THE STREET. 61 



Next and this is well worth, your notice if you 

 will examine the pebbles carefully, especially the larger 

 ones, you will find that they are not only more or less 

 rounded, but often scratched; and often, too, in more 

 than one direction, two or even three sets of scratches 

 crossing each other; marked, as a cat marks an elder 

 stem when she sharpens her claws upon it ; and that 

 these scratches have not been made by the quarrymen's 

 tools, but are old marks which exist as you may 

 easily prove for yourself while the stone is still lying 

 in its bed of clay. Would it not be an act of mere 

 common sense to say These -scratches have been made 

 by the sharp points of other stones which have rubbed 

 against the pebbles somewhere, and somewhen, with 

 great force ? 



So far so good. The next question is How did 

 these stones get into the clay ? If we can discover 

 that, we may also discover how they were rounded and 

 scratched. We must find a theory which will answer 

 our question ; and one which, as Professor Huxley 

 would say, " will go on all-fours," that is, will explain 

 all the facts of the case, and not only a few of them. 



What, then, brought the stones ? 



We cannot, I think, answer that question, as some 

 have tried to answer it, by saying that they were 

 brought by Noah's flood. For it is clear, that very 

 violent currents of water would be needed to carry 

 boulders, some of them weighing many tons, for many 

 miles. Now Scripture says nothing of any such violent 

 currents ; and we have no right to put currents, or any 

 other imagined facts, into Scripture out of our own 

 heads, and then argue from them as if not we, but the 

 text of Sciipture, had asserted their existence. 



E 2 



