NEW DISTRIBUTIONS OP SEA AND LAND. 311 



tracing gratifies the intellect, and the belief in its cer- 

 tainty exalts our conceptions of the course and continuity 

 of creation. 



And, first, we may safely assert that the present distribu- 

 tion of sea and land, with all its diversity of continent and 

 island, will not be the prevailing arrangement in future 

 ages ; and that the more remote the period, the greater in 

 all likelihood the difference. All that Geology teaches of 

 the past, shows that sea and land have repeatedly changed 

 places; all that Physical Geography tells of the present, 

 declares that similar changes are incessantly in progress. 

 Every wind that blows, every frost that freezes, every shower 

 that falls, river that runs, and wave that strikes, is wast- 

 ing and wearing down the framework of the existing con- 

 tinents ; and the eroded material, borne down to lakes and 

 estuaries and seas, is gradually displacing so much of the 

 water and creating newer lands. This waste is so apparent 

 on every cliff, and on every ravine and river-glen, that its 

 truth requires no further enforcement ; and the same holds 

 good of every shore against which the waves dash, or the 

 tidal currents scour. But while loss goes forward in one 

 region, gain takes place in another ; and thus most of our 

 river plains are but the sites of silted-up lakes, just as all 

 our deltas, occupying millions of square miles, are recent 

 and still progressing acquirements from the sea. Nor is it 

 alone to forces from without that the surface of our earth is 

 subjected. The forces from within the volcano, earth- 

 quake, and crust-motions, described in Sketch No. 3 are 

 equally active and incessant; here piling up new hills, 

 there throwing up the sea-bed into dry land, and here, 

 again, submerging terrestrial surfaces beneath the waters of 

 the ocean. If, then, such changes are unmistakably taking 

 place at the present day, and if by a parity of reasoning 



