242 EARLY STATE OF THE GLOBE. 



state than the sea of the present time, and that as 

 new actions began to be carried on over the land, 

 the sea became the receptacle of new products. 



Bearing all those things in mind, we can carry 

 our speculation back to the period of the first internal 

 action of the earth, the time when the first mountain 

 ridge (that ridge which was in time to become the 

 centre and spine of a continent), began to ascend from 

 the bottom of the deep. We have already spoken of 

 the great pressure which must have opposed its as- 

 cent ; but we must bear in mind that that pressure was 

 exactly balanced by the resistance of the bottom, so 

 that, mighty as were the weights, both upward and 

 downward, so nice was the poise, that a single grain 

 would have given it either the one direction or the 

 other. It is one of the beauties in the arrangements 

 of nature, and one which, though man must admire, 

 his art can never imitate, that the great and the 

 small are both equally susceptible to impressions. 

 Thus, though the weight of a continent was upon 

 the surface which was to be elevated by the internal 

 action, a few pounds would put it in motion ; and 

 whatever was the state of the substances when they 

 began to ascend, the two pressures were quite suf- 

 ficient to bring them to that state of cohesion which 

 we find in rocks. 



In those parts of the ocean which may be regarded 

 as covering the slopes of volcanic ridges, there are 

 still occasional displays of the action of those vast 

 powers ; and there are in many places decided proofs 

 of that action having been at some time carried on 

 in situations where it had ceased before the records 

 of history began. It is important, too, to bear in 

 mind that the formation of large tracts of alluvial 

 land so as to remove the sea to a distance, occasions 

 the internal action to cease. In that ridge of moun- 

 tains in France which stands nearest to the Mediter- 

 ranean, on the right bank of the Rhone, there are 

 many extinct volcanoes ; and the plain of Langue- 



