212 FORMATION OF LAND. 



produced by the action of water, and that that water 

 must have been the sea. Many more striking instances 

 could easily be adduced, but this one has been pre- 

 ferred, just because of its simplicity. If we find vast 

 masses of gravel, some of them moulded into hills of 

 considerable elevation, which could not have been pro- 

 duced without the action of the ocean, we need not 

 hesitate to refer to that action, those formations in 

 which the remains of marine plants and animals are 

 clearly to be seen. 



But we see the operation in progress. Along most of 

 the high and cliffy shores, even in this country, we 

 find places where every storm and every season take 

 something from the land. We find the stony fragments 

 in the course of being ground and rounded on some of 

 the shelving beaches, and new banks in the progress of 

 formation upon others. It is generally the lofty shore 

 that suffers, because that offers a resistance both to the 

 water of the ocean, and the wind upon its surface, 

 while shores that shelve out, receive the water in a 

 thin plate, and allow the wind to pass over. 



In some districts, we find very remarkable traces of 

 the former action of water. In the vicinity of granitic 

 mountains, there are always found vast detached masses 

 of that rock, exposed upon the surface, and rounded as 

 if they had been rolled in water. If those were found 

 only upon the slopes of granitic mountains, their pre- 

 sence could be accounted for by the frost loosening 

 them in winter, and their rolling down the slopes 

 during the rains of spring or summer. Even the 

 rounding of them might be at least partially accounted 

 for, by the action of the water in the places where they 



