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 follo-^^d, and the fossil shells and other organic remains, 

 which were certainly deposited in the rock's 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 rills, lakes 

 ruffled by the wand, 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. Filling 

 the vallies, overspreading the plains, and covering the hills, rounded 

 stones, of all sizes and all kinds, mixed together in as much confu- 

 sion 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. 



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 

 as now water the earth. For it occurs abundantly in places' where 

 streams do not run, where, indeed, they never did run 5 neither is it 

 confined to such narrow paths as serve for the passage of rivers, nor 

 is it laid in such forms, but it is casually and unequally spread over all 

 the face of the country. The blocks of stone which have been thus 

 rolled from their native sites, are, in some cases, of so vast a magni- 

 tude, and have been so strangely carried, even a hundred miles or 

 more, over hill and dale, that in vain do we think to assign any other 

 cause for the phenomena, than a great body of water moving upon 

 the earth. With regard to the force of this water, various facts, 

 which have fallen under my repeated examination, may give some 

 idea. On Shap fells in Westmoreland, a reddish granite is well 

 known, and its blocks are at once recognized by large interspersed 



