18 Principles of Geology, 



earth diversified by the same hills and vallies, the same precipices 

 and clifis 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 5 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 

 Thames is occasioned by meeting dips from Hertfordshire and Sur- 

 rey; 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 

 what we now witness : and these instances admitted to their full ex- 



