348 J. D. Dana on the Plan of Development, &c. 
tures of the globe were educed. The mountains of the earth at 
last stood at their full altitude, having gained some thousands 
of feet since the Tertiary ; and aed true offspring of the moun- 
ns, taking their size from the size of the mountain ranges, 
were sent on renovatin ng missions dot the breadth of the conti- 
nents. Indeed, the upper terraces of the rivers show that dur- 
hh is yet unexplained, unless Seen as in have sug- 
to the declining snows of a glacier epoch. In their 
strength, they at athe channeled the hills, and wrought out pit 
of the existing sublimity of mountain architecture. There 
the elimination of beauty and of immediate utility in wae 
stroke of those later waters, in striking contrast with the earlier 
operations of rock-making and mountain-lifting ; for those very 
conditions, those special surface details, were developed, that 
were most essential to the pastoral and agricultural pursuits with 
which man was to commence his own development, while that 
yeah was impressed on the earth that should tend to raise 
soul above its surface. 
earth, has a parallel in organic growth; for the extremities are 
finished and adult size attained before the head and inner being 
are fully antec: The analogy is fanciful; yet it is too obvi- 
ous a parallelism to be left unsaid on that account.* 
* T have alluded on a former an analogy between ad nagar of the 
earth ad ‘that A a gem. To this, there i is racking thn fanciful ; iss oe 
w, as is now known, at the basis of all develo t, which i vatrikingt 
even in the earth’s physical progress. The law, mew palm simply y 
this :—-Unity evolving multiplicity of parts through successive » eeividualizations 
proceeding py the more fundamental onward. ieee 
in igneous fusion, had no more distinction of parts than a 
wards, the continents, while still ce: pies the waters, began to — ‘Then, 
as the seas deepened, the first ‘dey lank appeared, low, barren, and ox. Under 
slow intestine movements and the po action of the eheeloping vwaters the 
dry land expanded, strata formed, and as bo sp ent on, 
prance rose, each in its appoint ted hse Finally in th et stage of f the pe develop 
ment, the Alps and Pyrenees arp eer peigois ms Sew thet majestic dimensio 
and the continents were finished out to their rder 
, as to the history of fresh eatenaThe first wities were all salt, and the 
ocean , the waters sweeping around the sphere in an almost un unbroken tide. 
Fresh vets left their mark onl ly. in a rain-dro a ression, Then the rising lands 
sateimenned | to mark out the great seas, and the chon msi continents were at times 
spread w wee water cree into — rills w ing from the slo 
bier 
d re rivers, till at last the She 
also were of bene ential an continents were oe active with the 
at work channeling 8, spreading out plains, opening 
of Pa ge and distributing ting good ev every where. 
Again, the first clima tropical. But when mountains and streamé 
were ; ately their pee a divendty of climate, (essential to the full strength of 
