230 PRESSURE OF WATER. 



strata of firm stone many miles in extent, and many 

 fathoms in thickness, bent and twisted as if they 

 were pancakes, or turned on their edges as if they 

 were ice-brash of but one hour's formation before 

 the roll of the ocean, or the wing of the morning 

 gale ; or when we find granite moulded as if it had 

 been dough. As little need we wonder when we 

 find a " dike" of difftrent or more modern formation, 

 or a " lode" of spar and metallic ore, cleaving sheer 

 through a mountain ridge, or extending many degrees 

 on the girdle of the earth. To a power that could 

 overcome such resistance we can set no bounds. 



But vast as that resistance is when we bring it to 

 the test of numbers the only one by which we can 

 get an accurate judgment it is really nothing as 

 compared with the resistance farther down ; for go 

 but one-fourth of the distance to the earth's centre, 

 and the pressure on a single inch would make the 

 greatest mountain, nay, all the land which stands out 

 above the mean level of the sea, kick the beam. 



Now, as we have stated the mean depth of the 

 water at rather less than it would come to, accord- 

 ing to the guesses of the most eminent and eminently 

 cautious men, who have calculated as far as they 

 could, and then speculated on that most extensive 

 subject, it must follow that whenever some parts 

 were elevated so as to be at a less depth, other parts 

 must have been depressed so as to be at a greater. 

 Thus the very pressure of the water, which resisted 

 the powers by which the continents and islands 

 were elevated, would assist those powers in their 

 progress, after the elevation was begun. Whatever 

 of matter was forced upward by the heat (for if 

 heat was not the instrument, we know it not, and 

 heat is fully adequate to the task), there would be 

 no vacancy left, because the superincumbent pres- 

 sure would send down the remaining parts with 

 more energy and effect than it resisted the ascend- 

 ing; so that, as the mountain reared its head, it 



