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CHAP. XV. 



On the elevated submarine Alluvia. 



THE subject of the present chapter is so intimately 

 connected with that of the following one, that had it 

 not been for the novelty j>f these views, and the un- 

 willingness of geologists to receive an arrangement of 

 what they have so long misunderstood, I should have 

 united it to that one, and thus given a general theory 

 of all the deposits of this nature which are later than 

 the chalk, and which have been so confounded under 

 the term tertiary. But I have another reason for thus 

 preserving it distinct. It was thus printed long ago 

 in the Quarterly Journal; having been separated 

 from the latter on account of the length of the 

 whole ; thus enabling others to profit by those views, 

 in claiming as a recent discovery, what was also written 

 many years before it was printed, including the theory 

 of the most difficult of the tertiary strata, as well as 

 of the latest revolutions of the earth. 



As it now stands, it therefore proposes to distin- 

 guish this particular case of strata, or deposits, from 

 those which are found in basins, be they marine or 

 lacustral, or both united ; as it furnishes the special 

 evidence for the following views of the most difficult 

 of these : showing, namely, that some of the basin- 

 shaped deposits have been elevated to their present 

 positions by analogous causes. And, as portions of 

 the bottom of the present ocean, they require to be 

 separated, if we are really desirous that Geology shall 

 not continue to be a disgraceful chaos. It is by con- 

 sidering causes, not facts alone, that this science has 

 already become what it is, in distinguishing the 



