132 Progressive Changes of Matter. [March, 



It would be extremely difficult to form an idea, or have just 

 conceptions of the scenes that daily occured in that age of the 

 world, and in that order of progress. There was no human eye 

 there to behold them, as no human being could then have existed 

 in these regions. What was considered terrejirma to day would 

 be to-morrow on its way to the ocean. Floods were identified 

 w^ith rain storms, and one wide deluge of periodic torrents pre- 

 vailed over the face of the land. In this age of the world, and be- 

 fore the excavation of river valleys, the ponderous boulder was 

 swept from its native bed and left in distant fields, where, during 

 all time it remains an imperishable monument to speak forth 

 in its own transport, the magnificent scenes that once prevailed 

 over these i-egions. In vain we may look for a just comparison 

 between the floods of geological antiquity and those of the pres- 

 ent day, although we may have the same amount of water flow- 

 ing from inland toward the sea, as did at that remote age. The 

 body on which such wonders were displayed has lost its form, the 

 beds of gravel, the fragments of rocks rounded and smoothed as we 

 see them, the finer materials of clay and sand abounding every- 

 where, and looked upon as enormous, are but the mere remnants 

 of the original pile, they are but a thin covering to the rocks be- 

 neath them. 



In assuming that the surface matter of this land once existed 

 as we have above dscribed it, we have found ample means to 

 carry the mind forward to such a conclusion. We have only pre- 

 supposed an extension of the secondary rocks to their proper 

 length and breadth, nor have we set down their thickness beyond 

 its true limits. When we have found recorded that the remain- 

 ing parts of these formations, in one place is more than six miles 

 in depth and in another more than 5000 feet, and still in another 

 but a part of one of the lower groups more than two miles, we have 

 only to considered them in connection with the geological his- 

 tory of the country previous to their removal into the ocean, i^nd 

 although by the upheave their horizontal position may have 

 been disturbed, and in many places they may have been titled over, 

 yet the great mass was there in a commingled body, with its fields 

 ranging higher than any mountain now existing on our globe. 

 In Europe these secondary formations are said to be still more 

 massive. 



If such was the vastness of the pile, we have not then over-es- 

 timated in the tide of imagination, the magnitude of any result 

 we have ascribed to the rain-floods that commenced with the 

 dawn oi' this new continent. Could such an enormous mass, sat- 

 urated and semi-fluid as it was, pass ofl* without bearing along 

 every object that became embosomed in its moving masses. W^hat 

 deep gorges must have been furrowed out in the slate formations ; 



