10 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



Thus the sea, previous to the deposition of the 

 horizontal strata, had formed others, which, by the 

 operation of problematical causes, were broken, 

 raised, and overturned in a thousand ways ; and, as 

 several of those inclined strata which it had formed 

 at more remote periods, rise higher than the ho- 

 rizontal strata which have succeeded them, and 

 which surround them, the causes by which the 

 inclination of these beds was effected, had also 

 made them project above the level of the sea, and 

 formed islands of them, or at least shoals and in- 

 equalities ; and this must have happened, whether 

 they had been raised by one extremity, or whe- 

 ther the depression of the opposite extremity had 

 made the waters subside. This is the second re- 

 sult, not less clear, nor less satisfactorily demon- 

 strated, than the first, to every one who will take 

 the trouble of examining the monuments on which 

 it is established. 



Proofs that such revolutions have been numerous. 

 But it is not to this subversion of the ancient 



they are now found, admitting it true with regard to some 

 particular strata which might have been crystallized, as Mr 

 Greenough supposes, like the deposit which encrusts the in- 

 side of vessels, in which water containing gypsum has been 

 boiled, cannot at least apply to those which contain shells or 

 rolled stones, which could not have waited, so suspended, 

 the formation of the cement by which they were to be ag- 

 glutinated. 



