38 . II. RELICS. Introduction, &c. 



other, and loged in cavities, 8$c., at heights to 

 which no partial inundation of the sea could reach. 

 Such depositions belong also to the third period.^ 



their present union must be held as casual and can give no insight 

 into the origin of either." Playfair's Illustrations, p. 475. It must 

 not be inferred, however, from the foregoing objections, that we 

 wish to establish a disbelief of the general deluge. The existence 

 of that event is confirmed by authority far above the evidence of 

 geological facts But, in the present study, it is particular^ neces- 

 sary to guard against the too common error, of ascribing effects to 

 causes, inadequate to their production. 



ft No attempt has been made above to point out separately the 

 periods, in which extraneous fossils have occasionally been intro- 

 duced into veins; but it may be here generally observed 1. That 

 all geologists admit the formation of veins to be subsequent to the 

 consolidation of the rocks they traverse 2. that different dates of 

 formation belong even to those found in the same tract or range of 

 strata and, 3. that Werner supposes a vein, consisting of various 

 substances, to have been formed at various times, by successive 

 depositions or crystallizations. Consequently the introduction of 

 extraneous fossils into veins has always been at a less remote epoch, 

 than that of the depositions of such bodies in the rock through 

 which the veins run and, agreeable to the Wernerian theory, even 

 plants and animals belonging to very distant ages, may be en- 

 veloped in the materials of the same vein. The agency, which 

 nature has employed in filling veins, is undoubtedly that, by which 

 the formation of the strata themselves has been effected ; and we 

 may conclude, that extraneous bodies have, in general, been car- 

 ried into veins while the rocks, in which they exist, were still under 

 water. In some instances, however, it would appear, that ve- 

 getable and animal remains have been deposited, by floods and 

 various other accidental causes, in veins which have been formed 

 since the emersion of the strata from the ocean. 



