FORMATION OF ROCKS. 235 



. - -".,. 



the other had come to it in a state of ignition; 

 and we know of no action from above, even if we 

 suppose a depositation from any imaginable depth 

 of water, which could have given the plates, or 

 strata, the inclinations which we observe. In a basin 

 of coal strata, or any of those that have a hollow, 

 of which we can obtain the section, so that the 

 several layers " crop out" all round, we can perhaps 

 imagine how they may have been formed by suc- 

 cessive growths and deposites above. But, even in 

 those, the coal, which is vegetable matter, and mat- 

 ter which must have grown, not in the sea, or in 

 any other way under water, but in the air on dry 

 land, as it contains the remains of land productions, 

 often lies under other formations, which must just 

 as clearly have had their origin, not merely in the 

 sea, but in deep water. 



The granular rocks, which have no appearance 

 of plates, or strata, but are great lumps, and lumps 

 having their upper surfaces very much resembling 

 what we would expect from matter forced up from 

 beneath, are perhaps the most striking proofs that 

 the mountains and valleys of which the principal 

 part is native stone have been elevated from under 

 water. In the mountains of granite and porphyry, 

 there are also precipices and cliffs, the formation of 

 which cannot be attributed to any known cause that 

 can act above the level of the sea. That cannot 

 have been produced by the action of water that has 

 fallen in rain, or in any way run in streams ; because 

 there is not only now no water at all equal to the 

 producing of the effect which we see, but there is 

 no channel in which water could at any time have 

 run. Many of our highest mountains those which 

 overtop all the country round have horse-shoe 

 precipices in their sides (often in the north-east 

 side), the tops of which are higher than any thing 

 within many miles ; and therefore we cannot sup- 

 pose them to have been formed by the action of 



