134 A CENTURY OF SCIENCE 



conceive, agents very competent to expel the water of these cav- 

 ities, and thus to deluge, at any time, the dry land. ' ' 



The teachings of Hayden were favorably received by 

 Hitchcock, Struder, and Hubbard, and many Europeans. 

 They found a champion in Jackson, who states (1839) : 36 



"From the observations made upon Mount Ktaadn, it is 

 proved, that the current did rush over the summit of that lofty 

 mountain, and consequently the diluvial waters rose to the height 

 of more than 5,000 feet. Hence we are enabled to prove, that the 

 ancient ocean, which rushed over the surface of the State, was at 

 least a mile in depth, and its transporting power must have 

 been greatly increased by its enormous pressure. ' ' 



Gibson, a student of western geology, reaches the same 

 conclusion (1836) : 37 



"That a wide-spread current, although not, as imagined, fed 

 from an inland sea, once swept over the entire region between 

 the Alleghany and the Rocky Mountains is established by 

 plenary proof/' 



Professor Sedgwick (1831) thought the sudden up- 

 heaval of mountains sufficient to have caused floods 

 again and again. The strength of the belief in the Bib- 

 lical flood, during the first quarter of the 19th century, 

 may be represented by the following remarks of Phil- 

 lips (1832) : 38 



' ' Of many important facts which come under the consideration 

 of geologists, the 'Deluge' is, perhaps, the most remarkable; and 

 it is established by such clear and positive arguments, that if any 

 one point of natural history may be considered as proved, the 

 deluge must be admitted to have happened, because it has left 

 full evidence in plain and characteristic effects upon the surface 

 of the earth." 



However, the theory of deluges, whether of ocean or 

 land streams, did not hold the field unopposed. In 1823, 

 Granger, 39 an observer whose contributions to science 

 total only six pages, speaks of the stride on the shore of 

 Lake Erie as 



"having been formed by the powerful and continued attrition of 

 some hard body. ... To me, it does not seem possible that water 

 under any circumstances, could have effected it. The flutings in 



