167 



delineate, or even " trace the circumstances of the most 

 horrible catastrophe to which the human, and all ani- 

 mal species, and even the terraqueous globe itself, had, 

 at any period since its origin been exposed."* 



From the comparatively few facts that I have been 

 able to obtain from reading and from observation, I 

 have endeavoured to prove, that a current had flowed 

 from the north or north east, to the south or south west, 

 across the continent of America, embracing in its course, 

 nearly its whole breadth. 1 have there endeavoured to 

 make it appear, that almost all the high northern regions 

 of North- America display but little else, than a super- 

 ficies of bare rocks, from which, the soil had been ta- 

 ken by this overwhelming current, and carried across 

 the continent, and deposited on the borders of the At- 

 lantic ocean That by it, whole forests, together with, 

 probably, all the animals that then inhabited the land 

 were swept away, and deposited in the alluvion which 

 had accumulated in low depressed places; but 

 more particularly, in the great alluvial district at the 

 south eastern extremity of our continent I have en- 

 deavoured to prove that those districts of fossil 

 wood and organick remains of animals, of different 

 kinds, that are found at and below low water mark, are 

 the result of the operations of this great current in 

 its earliest stage, and before it had risen to the height 

 of our ordinary mountains That the stones which had 

 been for ages accumulating on the bottoms of our ri- 

 vers, were driven from their beds and wafted over the 



* Se Kirwan's Essays, p. 54, 



