330 Notice and Review of the Reliquae Diluvianae. 
Geologists, in view of this subject, have made ita ques- 
tion, whether all rounded pebbles and bowlders, except 
those abraded and worn by rivers and other causes, now 
in action, were detached from the parent rock, and brought 
into their present shapes, by the waters of the deluge. 
We believe all will agree, that all these pebbles and bowl- 
ders, lying above the regular strata, were moved, and of 
course In some measure worn, by that catastrophe: and we 
think it almost equally evident, that all the abrasion they 
present, cannot be imputed tothatevent. This is obvious- 
ly the opinion of Mr. Buckland. In describing the dilu- 
vial detritus in the vicinity of London, he says, “The 
quartzose pebbles which I have been tracing without in- 
terruption from Birmingham to London, had, as I have be- 
fore mentioned, received their roundness before they were 
imbedded in the red sandstone formation; their form can- 
not therefore be referred to friction during their short trans- 
port by the diluvian waters. Indeed, instances are rare, 
where fragments, even of soft rocks, which have under- 
gone no further attrition than that of these waters, have re- 
ceived such an extreme degree of roundness as is found in 
the hard quartzose pebbles we are considering.” Again, 
he says, ‘‘ Similar varieties of gravel, the one angular, the 
other completely rolled, and derivative from the pebble 
beds of the plastic clay formation, occur in the valley of 
the Thames near London. These rounded pebbles, like 
those from Warwickshire, had apparently received their 
attrition from the long continued action of violently agita- 
ted waters, during more early revolutions that have affected 
-our planet; whilst the imperfectly rolled fragments are 
referable to the diluvial waters, which drifted them only 
from the neighbouring hills to their present place; and 
from the angular state of this and similar beds of diluvial 
gravel, we may infer that the inundation which produced 
them was of short duration.” —p. 256. 
Several years since, in a Review of Hayden’s Essays in 
this Journal, Prof. Silliman gave us, definitely, his views 
in relation to pebbles and bowlders, which appear to us to 
be confirmed by succeding discoveries. ‘* The attrition,” 
says he, “‘of the common waters of the earth, and even 
that exerted during the comparatively short period of the 
deluge of Noah, would do very little towards producing so 
