442 ON THE GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS 



cases ; but that is all. It is certain, reversely, that 

 the hurled remains are not competent to prove the 

 causes, as also these apply to alluvial deposits only. 



If such elevations of the earth as that of Italy he 

 assigned as the cause of torrents of this extensive 

 nature, which they unquestionably must have been, 

 the general conclusion as to the fossil remains is the 

 same. They are little likely to have survived ; and 

 they are not alone sufficient to prove such a fact. 

 Italy has demanded a much more difficult proof, as I 

 have shown, and far other reasonings than these su- 

 perficial ones ; else would it perhaps have been ex- 

 plained long ago. Of the Mosaic deluge, I might say 

 the same, far more strongly. No transportation, be 

 it ever so established, can prove that fact ; and that 

 fact itself, as detailed in Scripture, gives no reason to 

 suppose that it was accompanied by such extraor- 

 dinary torrents. But this is a question that must 

 recur, mixed up as it has been with almost every thing 

 in the history of the Earth. If the foregoing cases 

 explain some of the sources of error among geologists 

 in deciding respecting transported fossils, it is still 

 necessary to point out others, and to explain some of 

 those more fully : the actual cases of this kind, and 

 their true nature, will thus develop themselves with- 

 out difficulty. 



There are two distinct circumstances, under which 

 marine transportations have been imagined, where the 

 fossils remain in their places. The retirement of the 

 Caspian sea through the growth of the lateral alluvia 

 is a case in point as to the first : the marine remains 

 found now far beyond it, were once a part of its own 

 shores. And all the great sandy deserts present 

 the same false cases. Their waters are salt, because 

 they consist of the red marl stratum, containing this 



