THEORY OF THE EARTH. 437 



how far the revolution of the earth was general : yet 

 if any portions of the red marl or the magnesiaii lime- 

 stone were then also forming, the second argument 

 will be in favour of such a supposition. Be this as it 

 may, I think there cannot be any doubt respecting an 

 entire destruction, at that period, the fourth revolu- 

 tion, which produced the eighth form of the globe, 

 when we see that its universality is indicated by the 

 wide range of the red marl, and find that this great 

 deposit contains few or no organic bodies. And it 

 seems to me that we must argue in the same manner 

 respecting the green sand, similarly circumstanced, in 

 this respect, to the red marl, as I shall again notice : 

 while if these conclusions rest on the second leading 

 argument, we must infer, from the first, that the 

 last revolution, elevating the chalk, must have been 

 attended with an universal extinction of life, since 

 only an universal production of igneous rocks could 

 have thus displaced the enormous masses here implied. 

 Beyond this, there seems no reason to presume on the 

 entire extinction of what had been created after the 

 last event of this nature ; of those races which inha- 

 bited that Earth which is the basis of our own. All 

 further revolution appears to have been partial: and it 

 is perhaps even evidence of this, that some at least of 

 the very same species preserved in these newest strata, 

 "tertiary," and marine-alluvial, are identical with ex- 

 isting ones. 



Thus then, if these views are correct, I have demon- 

 strated four extinctions of antecedent organized crea- 

 tions, while there are two more, perhaps less satisfac- 

 torily proved. Each of these, consequently, admitting 

 the whole, implies a previous distinct creation; while, 

 as one must be added, subsequent to the last general 

 revolution which elevated the secondary strata, there 



