1847.] Progressive Changes of Matter. 127 



PROGRESSIVE CHANGES OF MATTER— NO. III. 



BY A. OS BORN. 



I stated in a previous number that there were two dissimilar 

 physical forces that always had a tendency to disturb the repose 

 of matter. Heat exerts an expanding force and when deep seat- 

 ed and wide spread beneath the ocean's floor, raises up the super- 

 incumbent mass from the bosom of the waters, thereby forming 

 a continent. The principal change matter undergoes in this pro- 

 cess is elevation, and a general disturbance of its interior arrange- 

 ments. The other force is gravitation, having a direct control 

 over elevated water which, when rained upon the earth, floM's to- 

 ward the ocean, moving along in its progress the ponderable mat- 

 ter coming withm its influence. The changes that have thus ta- 

 ken place among the surface materials of the North American 

 Continent from the era of its emergence until the present time, 

 constitute its geological history which I now propose to ex- 

 amine. To assume however, that all these changes have left 

 even any traces of their former existence, would be the extreme 

 of presumption ; for the elements of matter have been embodied, 

 broken up and scattered, and again formed into other bodies with 

 new combinations through so long a vista of departed time, that 

 even some of their most conspicuous formations have, like the 

 rain-storms, by whose agency they were produced, lost their ori- 

 ginal identity. And to pretend to give even a general history of 

 all the prominent formations that now exist in connection with 

 previously existing bodies, would be alike presumptuous. All that 

 I venture now to do will be to contemplate the former existence 

 of things and "restore in imagination" the original surface con- 

 dition of this continent, and the varied phases it presented during 

 the wearing down of this surface until we behold the present con- 

 dition of things ; and even confined within these bounds of his- 

 torical labor, as my own observations have been limited to cer- 

 tain localities, no pretence will be made to account for the geolo- 

 gical phenomena in other places, except in so far as their history 

 may be involved in a plausible interpretation of nature's laws. 



The North American Continent on its emergence from the 

 ocean was a great and extensive pile of sea-deposit, embracing near- 

 ly two zones, its surface ribbed and domed shaped, by the protru- 

 sion of igneous rocks, and so immense had been the accumulations 

 of these rocks, at the period of which I am now speaking, that 

 their towering heights ranged among the clouds ! By an up- 

 heaval, this secondary formation became disorganized and shatter- 

 ed, and by its own weight was crushed and pulverized. Add to 



