Principles of Geology. 15 
perhaps, the most remarkable; and it is established by such clear 
and positive arguments, that if any one point of natural history may 
be considered as proved, the deluge must be admitted to have hap- 
pened, because it has left full evidence in plain and characteristic ef- 
fects upon the surface of the earth. 
Formerly, indeed, when geology was in its infancy, a wrong meth- 
od was followed, and the fossil shells and other organic remains, 
which were certainly deposited in the rocks before the deluge, were 
appealed to as evidence of that event. This mistake was natural 
enough in that early period of the science, but at present cannot be 
maintained, without a gross anachronism. Examine where we may 
the action of moving water, whether: in little mountain tills, lakes 
ruffled by the wind, flowing rivers, or on the margin of the sea, we 
every where perceive the same effects ; stones smoothed and round- 
ed, masses crumbled and disintegrated. We may trace old channels 
of rivers by the pebbles left in them, and the set of the tide by their 
accumulation on the shore; in a word, the action of moving water 
is known by its effects. As the old channel of a rapid stream is fill- 
ed with pebbles that declare the force of the current, so the whole 
earth is covered by pebbles, the wreck of a general flood. F illing 
the vallies, Overspreading the~plains, and covering the hills, rounded 
stones, of all sizes and all kinds, mixed together in as much confu- 
‘ion’ as pebbles on the sea-shore, (fragments of all the known rocks 
Which Compose the interior of the earth,) are profusely scattered on 
Its surface, washes 
It is impossible to account for the vast heaps of this gravel by sup- 
Posing that it might be laid in its present situation by any streams such 
4S Now water the earth. For it occurs abundantly in places where 
streams do not tun, where, indeed, they never did run ; neither is it 
; Confined 'o'such narrow: paths as serve for the passage of rivers, nor 
‘Sit laid in such forms, but it is casually and unequally spread over all 
aie, eof the country. ‘The blocks of stone which have been thus 
_-** tom their native sites, are, in some cases, of so vast a magni- 
tude, an 
y and have been So strangely carried, even a hundred miles or 
ore, over hill and dale, that in vain do we think to assign any other 
“ause for the Phenomena, than a great body of water moving be tas: 
* With regard to the force of this water, various facts, 
At: fallen under my repeated examination, may give some 
PAREN ca Shap fells in Westmoreland, a reddish granite is well 
"own, and its blocks are at once recognized by large interspersed 
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