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-_— > Principles of Geology. 
earth diversified by the same hills and vallies, the same precipices 
and cliffs as we now behold, or was all this beautiful variety of surface 
occasioned by that flood, or is it the result of subsequent causes? 
These points have been resolutely debated by different theorists, and 
the most furious contests happened, as usual, whilst the facts were 
but half understood. But the controversy has been gradually quiet- 
ed; and geologists having learned to agree upon facts, have ceased 
to dispute about opinions, the time is come when the observers of 
nature have imbibed a spirit of calm and limited induction, which 
leads to candid agreement or modest dissent. 
No one who considers the extensive tracts formed of the diluvi- 
al detritus, can doubt that great alterations were occasioned in the 
features of the earth’s surface, at the period of the deluge. All the 
solid land of Holderness is an accumulation of this kind, from the 
ruins of other parts of England and Scotland, and perhaps Norway. 
If hills were known before the flood, their present peculiar shapes 
must be dated from that event; and if vallies were then in existence, 
they must have been deepened and widened, or possibly filled up and 
obliterated. But that the whole antediluvian surface of the world 
was even and uniform, is altogether improbable. For, to a very 
considerable extent, the great features of the earth’s surface are de- 
termined by peculiarities in its internal construction. — Its highest 
ranges of mountains are composed of one set of rocks, but its widely 
extended plains are based on another. Obviously, therefore, these 
great distinctions are not only antediluvian, but aboriginal. There 
are, also, many lesser features of this kind, which must be carefully 
selected from the phenomena ascribed to the deluge. Many great 
natural depressions or wide vales are produced, evidently by the con- 
vergence of opposite declinations of strata; as the great vale of the 
ames is occasioned by meeting dips from Hertfordshire and Sur- 
vey; and such are, doubtless, antediluvian. Many geologists be- 
lieve that, from some unexplained. causes operating during their de- 
Position, some strata were originally deposited at higher elevations 
than others ; that, for example, the lower part of the coal series was 
made to attain elevations not reached by the upper part of the same 
Series; and that the new red sandstone was never in England placed 
at SO great an altitude as some of the strata which lie above it and 
below it. In these instances, therefore, it has been concluded that 
the antediluvian features of the earth were not very different from 
whet we now witness: and these instances admitted to their full ex- 
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