272 RECENT FORMATIONS. 



own islands) have taken place under the aggressions of 

 man; and man himself has risen through the successive 

 stages of stone, bronze, and iron, to what we now behold 

 him. We pass from pre-historic to historic times, but still 

 there is no cessation. The agencies of nature are as busy 

 now in moulding and remodelling the rocky crust as ever 

 they were. From their slow and gradual operation we may 

 fail to appreciate the results ; to the future, however, they 

 will appear in all their vastness and universality. 



