70 WALKS AND TALKS. 



of whom I inquired how long the land had been covered by 

 the waters. * Is this a question/ said they, ' for a man like 

 you? This 'spot has always been what it is now/ I again re- 

 turned five hundred years afterwards, and the sea had disap- 

 peared. I inquired of a man who stood alone upon the spot, 

 how long ago this change had taken place ; and he gave me 

 the same answer as I had received before. Lastly, on com- 

 ing back again, after an equal lapse of time, I found there a 

 flourishing city, more populous and more rich in beautiful 

 buildings than the city I had seen the first time; and when I 

 would fain have informed myself concerning its origin, the in- 

 habitants answered me, ' Its rise is lost in remote antiquity ; 

 we are ignorant how long it has existed, and our fathers were 

 on this subject as ignorant as ourselves.'" 



This allegory sets forth the nature of the modern scientific 

 conception of changes in relative positions of land and sea. It 

 must not, however, be understood that continents ever occu- 

 pied the sites of the modern oceans ; though these oceans once 

 extended over all the lands. 



Thus these strata of sandstone, limestone, and shale are real 

 ancient sea-sediments, as we have already argued ; and these 

 forms of life imbedded in the strata are the relics of the ani- 

 mals which dwelt in the sea while the sediments were accu- 

 mulating. If so long a time as we have concluded was re- 

 quired for the deposition of these materials, then, assuredly, 

 the one hundred and fifty days of the Noachian inundation 

 were egregiously inadequate. 



Moreover, if we subject these relics to critical examination, 

 we discover that their resemblance to living forms is in fun- 

 damental characters only. As to particular species, we find 

 none, save in peculiar situations, which are identical with liv- 

 ing species. We find them less like living species than the 

 leopard is like the tiger, or the hen-hawk like the snowy owl. 

 To maintain, as the old theologians did, that modern species 

 are descended from species whose relics are fossilized in the 

 rocks, is to advocate a theory of transformation which would 

 have been startling, if they could have appreciated the facts. 



