492 GEOLOGY. 



by currents and deposited in its bottom or along its shores, may 

 eventually raise the level of the present ocean, and change the 

 whole surface of the globe. 



But independent of the gradual changes effected and effect- 

 ing on the earth's surface by the agency of the atmosphere and 

 water, evidences of changes more abrupt, and revolutions in the 

 materials of which it is composed not to be accounted for by 

 this agency, are evident in most of the strata. Rocks high above 

 the present level of the sea, but filled with fossil fragments of 

 the former inhabitants of the ocean, attest a great change at 

 some former period, and beyond the reach of human records ; 

 and remains of animals of gigantic size, and unlike any of the 

 present races of living beings, lead back to a period of the 

 world's history equally remote. Besides, the stratified rocks, 

 raised in various degrees from the horizontal plane, dislocated 

 and bent in various forms, are adverse to the theory of aqueous 

 solution, as accounting for their present appearance ; and thus 

 earthquakes and volcanoes, a central fire, and other agents, have 

 been brought in to account for the position of the mineral mas- 

 ses which compose the surface of the earth. 



It would be out of place here to detail the various theories 

 which have been hazarded to account for the present appear- 

 ances of the land suface of our globe. It is only necessary to 

 mention that two great theories have been proposed, the one 

 assuming that water was the principal agent, and the other at- 

 tributing the present appearances to the agency of heat or fire. 

 That neither of these taken singly is sufficient to account for 

 the present distribution and arrangement of rocks, is demon- 

 strated by numerous facts. A third theory has been proposed, 

 a kind of amalgamation of the two former, by which both fire 

 and water are conceived to have had their part in producing the 

 present appearances the aqueous solution lodging the mate- 

 rials in horizontal beds or strata, and the dislocation and incli- 

 nation, as well as other appearances, being produced by a cen- 

 tral force moving upwards. A greater accumulation of facts 

 and observations is perhaps necessary to determine this matter ; 

 but it is satisfactory in the meantime to be aware that the dis- 

 coveries of philosophy are in consonance with the details of the 

 early ages of the world given in the Sacred Writings. 



Lehman was the first writer who arranged the stony masses 



