424 ON THE UNIVERSAL DELUGE. 



limited and isolated basins of water, since fresh-water 

 animals are their constant attendants. 



Although the beds of coal of our secondary formations 

 appear to have originated in a similar way with other 

 mineral formations, and not by violent catastrophes, it is 

 otherwise with a part of those vegetable remains which 

 are met with in alluvial land. Subterranean forests, 

 whose circumference, in some instances, extends about 70 

 square leagues, partly in a state of good preservation, 

 and partly more or less decomposed, afford satisfactory 

 proof of deluges, and have undoubtedly been covered up 

 with earth by a violent eruption of standing or running 

 water. But these are local effects, similar to what take 

 place in our own day, but on a larger scale. 



There are abundant fossil remains of land animals, re- 

 sembling those of water animals, found in such a state of 

 preservation, that we cannot suppose them to have been 

 brought hither from distant places, and by means of cur- 

 rents. Their appearing in beds of rocks, or generally in 

 aqueous precipitates, proves that the soil they first in- 

 habited, must have been dry land, afterwards overflowed 

 with water. 



The appearance of what are called fresh water shells, 

 in alternate beds with marine animals, being sometimes 

 observed in newer floetz rocks in great abundance, seems 

 to indicate a reiterated retreat and return of the sea. 

 But however meritorious the labours of naturalists, 

 through whom attention has been directed to the subject, 

 may be in other respects, we are nevertheless disposed to 

 entertain doubts concerning their conclusions. In our 

 own seas and ponds upon the coasts, we observe the same 



