86 



CHAP. VIII. 



On the Dispositions, Fractures, and dislocations, of 

 Strata. 



WHEN we find the stratified rocks forming the sum- 

 mits of the highest mountains, elevated many thou- 

 sands of feet above the level of the sea, and when we 

 suppose that the objects which we are contemplating 

 were once covered by a fluid, we are strongly impress- 

 ed with the changes which the relative levels of the 

 water and the land must have undergone, with the 

 revolutions which the surface of the earth has experi- 

 enced. And when we find the remains of shell-fish 

 imbedded in these strata, we cannot hesitate to admit 

 that these rocks have once been covered by the Ocean. 

 When lastly we observe that those beds which must 

 once have been horizontal are now vertical, that they 

 are inclined, broken, bent, and dislocated, in innumer- 

 able ways, we are forcibly led to conclude that their 

 present distance from the sea has been accompanied 

 by violent alterations in the form of the surface, and 

 that it has been produced by the action of enormous 

 powers. An inquiry into the probable nature and 

 causes of all these changes, will form a proper con- 

 clusion to a description of each of the various pheno- 

 mena which the facts themselves present. 



The horizontal position of strata is not incompatible 

 with their situation on the summits of the highest 

 mountains; neither are the inclined, nor even the 

 vertical strata, excluded from the lowest grounds. 



