180 LIFE ON THE EARTH. 



ing; the most horrible and portentous catastrophe 

 that nature ever yet saw; an elegant, orderly, and 

 habitable earth, quite unhinged, shattered all to 

 pieces, and turned into a heap of ruins : convulsions 

 so exorbitant and unruly; a change so exceedingly 

 great and violent, that the very representation alone 

 is enough to startle and shock a man.' 



ALL LIFE DERIVED FEOM THE SEA. 



By degrees, however, the great truth fixed by ge- 

 ology, that we stand on the dried bed of the ancient 

 sea, began to influence the ingenious writers who 

 followed close upon Plot and Scheuchzer. Among 

 these De Maillet, in the singular work called ' Tellia- 

 medj (his own name reversed,) is conspicuous for the 

 perverse resolution with which he follows out the 

 evil consequences of an ' inappropriate idea 1 ' on 

 this subject. Believing that the old sea-beds were 

 laid dry by the retirement and diminution of the 

 water, about three feet in a thousand years, he 

 feels no hesitation in deriving all the plants and 

 animals of the land from prior productions of like 

 nature in the sea, though at present circumstances 

 may fail which contributed formerly to spontaneous 



1 See Whewell's Inductive Sciences for examples of ' appro- 

 priate ideas.' 



