36 . II. RELICS. Introduction 



iion, at least, of those animals, whose bones are 

 found in clefts and chasms of .ancient strata, f 



The extensive beds of vegetable matter, consist- 

 ing for the most part of trees, which have evidently 

 grown and fallen on the spot, where their remains 

 now lie deposited and which are common on low, 

 flat coasts, ft are doubtless the vestiges of in- 

 roads and local inundations of the sea. Such, also, 

 appear to have been the cause of those superficial 

 accumulations of marine remains, in an unmineral- 

 ized state, which are frequently discovered, on low 

 tracts of land,f f f at considerable distances from 

 sea. 



f The accumulations of bones which have been discovered in 

 some caves, are, 'perhaps, the gradual production of successive 

 ages, rather than the effect of any single inundation or other 

 catastrophe. 



tt Vide Dr. Correa De germ's survey of a submarine forest 

 on the east coast of England. Philos. Trans. 1799, part 1. p. 

 145. Similar accumulations of vegetable matter have also been 

 observed on the western coast of this kingdom. 



tit It perhaps may be doubted, if any deposition of organic 

 bodies has ever yet occurred, unequivocally demonstrative of a 

 general flood. The shells found in Peru on a mountain con- 

 siderably higher than any affording similar remains in Europe (vide 

 Hist. Acad. des Sciences, 1770. Phys. Gen. n. 7.) appear to have 

 been perfect petrifactions, included in the substance of the stone 

 of which the mountain consists ; of course, they prove the subma- 

 rine formation of the rock in question, but not that its contents 

 have been elevated to their present situation by the deluge, 

 as some geologists have supposed. Even loose or unconsolidated 

 deposits of marine remains, sometimes found, according to Pallas, 

 in the more external fissures and veins of lofty primary rocks, in 



