GEOLOGY. 539 



of an immense rent, extending almost from one pole to the 

 other. This, by lifting up the two Americas above the 

 ocean, raised the prodigious mass of water which submerged 

 the ancient continent, and produced the Mosaic deluge. 

 Thus fire and water successively remodelled the surface of 

 the globe. 



It is to be remarked that the crust of the earth in break- 

 ing follows a fixed determinate direction. Von Buch, Hum- 

 boldt, and M. Elie de Beaumont have, in speaking of this 

 subject, called our attention to the fact, that all the great 

 mountain chains have been developed from the north to 

 the south, as the Andes and Ural, or from west to east, as 

 in the Atlas chain. 



It is evident that each telluric phase had its peculiar or- 

 ganic forms, and that the species of animals of one geolog- 

 ical epoch neither lived before nor after this epoch. Hum- 

 boldt himself, the most illustrious philosopher of modern 

 times, embraces this opinion without any qualification. 

 " Each upheaval," he says, " of these mountain chains, of 

 which we can determine the relative antiquity, has been 

 signalized by the destruction of ancient species and the ap- 

 pearance of new organisms." 



It is impossible to be more explicit. The Rev. Dr. Buck- 

 land professes the same opinion, and says that numerous 

 groups of animals and plants have already had their begin- 

 ning and their end, and that creative intervention must 

 have manifested itself at the appearance of each of them. 



Telluric phenomena have not been abandoned to the 

 fluctuations of chance. Governed by harmonious laws, each 

 of them links itself with the past, and loses itself in the 



