33 THEORY OP THE EARTH. 



among the solid strata, demonstrate the vast tbrce 

 of the motions excited in the mass of waters by 

 these overturnings. Life, therefore, has been often 

 disturbed on this earth by terrible events calami- 

 ties which, at their commencement, have perhaps 

 moved and overturned to a great depth the entire 

 outer crust of the globe, but which, since these 

 first commotions, have uniformly acted at a less 

 depth and less generally. Numberless living be- 

 ings have been the victims of these catastrophes ; 

 some have been destroyed by sudden inundations, 

 others have been laid dry in consequence of the 

 bottom of the seas being instantaneously elevated. 

 Their races even have become extinct, and have 

 left no memorial of them except some small frag- 

 ment which the naturalist can scarcely recognise. 



Such are the conclusions which necessarily re- 

 sult from the objects that we meet with at every 

 step of our inquiry, and which we can always ve- 

 rify by examples drawn from almost every country. 

 Every part of the globe bears the impress of these 

 great and terrible events so distinctly, that they 

 must be visible to all who are qualified to read 

 their history in the remains which they have left 

 behind. 



But what is still more astonishing and not less 

 certain, there have not been always living crea- 

 tures on the^earth, and it is easy for the observer 



