iv Hitt tons Doctrines 1 7 1 



were entirely different from any such arrangement. Where- 

 ever he went, he found proofs that the sedimentary strata 

 now forming most of the land had generally lost the 

 horizontal position in which they were accumulated. He 

 saw them usually inclined, sometimes placed on end, or 

 even stupendously contorted and ruptured. It was mani- 

 festly absurd, as De Saussure had shown in the Alps, to 

 suppose that the pebbles in vertical beds of conglomerate 

 could ever have been deposited in such positions. And if 

 some of the vertical strata could thus be demonstrated to 

 have been originally horizontal, there could be no reason for 

 refusing to concede that the same alteration had happened 

 to the other vertical strata, even though they did not supply 

 such convincing proofs of it. No stratum could have ended 

 off abruptly at the time of its formation, nor could it have 

 been accumulated in plicated layers. But nothing is more 

 common than to find strata presenting their truncated 

 ends to the sky, while in some districts they are folded and 

 wrinkled, like irregular piles of carpets. Not only so, but 

 again and again they are found to be sharply dislocated, 

 so that two totally different series are placed parallel to 

 each other. 



Hutton recognized that these changes, which were 

 probably brought about at different periods, must be 

 attributed to some great convulsions which, from time to 

 time, have shaken the very foundations of the earth. He 

 could prove that, in some places, the Primary rocks had in 

 this way been broken up and placed on end before the 

 Secondary series was laid down, for, as on the Berwickshire 

 coast, he had traced the older vertical strata overlain and 

 wrapped round by the younger horizontal deposits, and 



