4'04 ORDER AMIDST APPARENT CONFUSION- 



which are the result of disturbing forces,, that appear to a 

 certain degree to have acted at random and fortuitously. 



Elevations and subsidences, inclinations and contortions-, 

 fractures and dislocations, are phenomena, which, although 

 at first sight they present only the appearance of disorder 

 and confusion, yet when fully understood, demonstrate the 

 existence of Order, and Method, and Design, even in the 

 operations of the most turbulent, among the many mighty 

 physical forces which have affected the terraqueous globe.* 



Some of the most important results of the action of these 

 forces have been already noticed in our fourth and fifth 

 chapters; and our first Section, PI. 1, illustrates their bene- 

 ficial effect, in elevating and converting into habitable Lands, 

 strata of various kinds that were formed at the bottom of 

 the ancient Waters; and in diversifying the surface of these 

 lands with Mountains, Plains, and Valleys, of various pro- 



• "Notwithstanding- the appearances of irregularity and confusion in the 

 formation of the crust of our globe, which are presented to the eye in tl>e 

 contemplation of its external features, Geologists have been able in nume- 

 rous instances to detect, in the arrangement and position of its stratified 

 masses, distinct approximations to geometrical laws. In the plienomena of 

 anticlinal lines, faults, fissures, mineral veins, &c. such laws are easily recog- 

 nised." Hopkin's Researches in Physical Geology. Trans. Cambridge 

 Phil. See. V. 6. part 1.1835. 



"It scarcely admits of a doubt," says the author of an able article in tlie 

 Quarterly Review, (Sept. 1826, p. 537,) "that the agents employed in ef- 

 fecting this most perfect and systematic arrangement have been earthquakes, 

 operating with diflTerent degrees of violence, and at various intervals of 

 time during a lapse of ages. The order tliat now reigns has resulted there- 

 fore, from causes which have generally been considered as capable only of 

 defacing and devastating the earth's surface, but which we thus find strong 

 grounds for suspecting were, in the primeval state of the globe, and periiaps 

 still are, instrumental in its perpetual renovation. The effects of these sub- 

 terranean forces prove that they are governed by general laws, and that these 

 laws have been conceived by consummate wisdom and forethought." 



" Sources of apparent derangement in the system appear, when their 

 operation throughout a series of ages is brought into one view, to have pro- 

 duced a great preponderance of good, and to be governed by fixed general 

 laws, condusive, perhaps essential, to tiie habitable state of. ths globe.>" 

 ]aiid, p. 539. 



