244 THE HISTORY OF GEOLOGY 



thus in his inaugural lecture delivered before this Uni- 

 versity in 1819 he expressed himself in the following 

 words : " The grand fact of an universal deluge at no 

 very remote period is proved on grounds so decisive and 

 incontrovertible, that had we never heard of such an 

 event from Scripture or any other Authority, Geology of 

 itself must have called in the assistance of some such 

 catastrophe to explain the phenomena of diluvial action." 



Subsequently pursuing his researches into this question 

 he seems to have ransacked the whole world for evidence 

 and found everywhere confirmatory proofs. The ancient 

 gravels of Wytham were, he considered, swept from War- 

 wickshire and counties still farther north, in the rush of 

 the great flood ; stones from Norway were carried to the 

 east coast of England, and the mass of pebbles and other 

 debris, which were driven along with it, scoured the face 

 of the country, and thus produced the polishing and stria- 

 tion so frequently visible on the surface of the harder 

 rocks of our islands ; the bones of mammoths and other 

 mighty monsters of prediluvial times, that lie buried in 

 caves and elsewhere, were eloquent in their testimony to 

 the destruction which it wrought on the living world. 

 That the loftiest mountains were submerged by it was 

 proved by the discovery of the bones of horses and deer 

 at an altitude of 16,000 feet above the' sea on the slopes of 

 the Himalaya. They are brought down by the avalanches 

 of those mountains, and are said by the natives to have 

 fallen from the clouds and to be the bones of genii. The 

 "Reliquiae Diluvianae," in which these views appear, was 

 published in 1823, and by its skill, learning, and eloquence 

 at once attracted universal admiration. 



But Buckland, though he appears in this work as an 

 advocate, was by no means merely an advocate, his was 

 a mind too highly endowed to rest satisfied with any but 

 the most convincing proof, and as time elapsed, and he 



