88 



DISPOSITIONS, FRACTURES AND 



velica in Peru, contain shells at an elevation of mor 

 than 14,000 feet above the level of the sea. To depress 

 the ocean from that point to its present level, is to 

 annihilate^ or otherwise dispose of, all the water that 

 would be required to fill the imaginary space between 

 the spheroid whose diameter is bounded by the present 

 level of the sea, and that which exceeds it by twice 

 14,000 feet. This is a problem for which neither che- 

 mistry nor geology has made provision. Nothing in 

 nature is annihilated; nor will the laws of astronomy 

 here concede that which those of chemistry alike 

 refuse, when it is recollected that the imaginary mass 

 of water in question, exceeds one five hundredth part 

 of the bulk of the whole earth. To attempt to prove 

 that it has not retreated within imagined abysses of 

 the globe, would now be to argue, it is hoped, without 

 opponents. 



Even if all this could be admitted, arid every ad- 

 vantage allowed, it will immediately appear that this 

 supposition offers only a very partial explanation of 

 the phenomena that attend elevated strata. An hypo* 

 thesis that explains but one out of many concatenated 

 effects, carries with it its own condemnation. 



Let us now examine, on the other hand, the argu- 

 ments which prove that the land has, on the contrary, 

 quitted the sea; that it has been raised, by whatever 

 causes, to its present elevation above the general level 

 of the simple spheroid. 



If the highly inclined position of strata were not in 

 itself a proof of their elevation, evidences of motion 

 are found in a great number of phenomena, which 

 are more particularly described in their proper places. 

 In their curvatures we find proofs of disturbance ; we 

 find even more decided evidence to the same purpose, 

 in their fractures. But when we see that these frao 



