GEOLOGICAL QUESTIOT5 5 



for the origin of the Tradition ias been met by a 

 preliminary objection, which I carrot however admit 

 to be valid, as it is based up::: the assumption 

 of Uniformity in degree in all time* According 

 to this the time measure for all great changes of 

 level should be limited to about 2j feet in a century, 

 so that the more rapid movements involved on our 

 hypothesis would be thought impossible. 5 It is clear, 

 however, to us that up to the very date of the sub- 

 mergence described in the following pages, the crust of 

 the earth was in a very mobile srare, for that it under- 

 went shortly before that event many considerable up- 

 heavals is amply proved by the presence of Eaised 

 Beaches with shells of existing species at elevations 

 of 10 feet, 100, and up to 600 feet or more. What 

 the exact rate of these upheavals may have been 

 it is impossible to determine, but that they come 

 within a short range of geological time is clearly 

 shown by the circumstance that the species of shells 

 are recent throughout. I cannot, therefore, consider 

 that objection a bar to the proposed hypothesis. 



Let us now see how far the consequences of a deep 

 submergence agree with the geological phenomena 

 described in previous memoirs, and briefly resumed 

 in these pages. As the waters crept slowly over the 



1 Uniformity of kind (or law) cannot be questioned, but uni- 

 formity of degree, which is the essential condition of the modern 

 doctrine of Uniformitarianism, stands on a. very different footing. 

 This is a question I have discussed at some length, in the 

 Nineteenth Century for October 1893, under the title of The 

 Present Position of Geology. See also the author's Geology, vol. i. 



2 See Appendix B. 



