318 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



may admit the doctrine of formations ; that the beds may have been 

 deposited in successive assemblages, and there might be only one as- 

 semblage or series afloat at a time, in any particular place or region; 

 though we have no right to suppose, that any one series extended 

 round the whole globe, so as to constitute a universal formation. 



We have already (§20) anticipated the queries that may be 

 made, respecting the agent employed in breaking up the crust of the 

 earth, and subsequently elevating the new formed strata. These 

 operations were most probably effected by volcanic agency, or some 

 expansive force acting from below. The bed of the sea was thus 

 heaved upwards in various places ; and this could not be done with- 

 out a corresponding depression of the land; for wherever any portion 

 of the earth's crust was elevated, the chasm beneath it would naturally 

 be filled up with matter rushing in, or pressed in, from all sides; 

 and this matter being abstracted from under the adjoining strata, the 

 latter would necessarily sink. The violence attending these opera- 

 tions, would greatly facilitate the dissolving of the strata, in the early 

 stages of the deluge; while the strata that remained undissolved, 

 would be thrown into that wild confusion which the primary rocks 

 now present; some masses being raised on their edges vertically, 

 and others at high angles, as we see in accumulated fragments of 

 broken ice. In the later stages of the deluge, when a great part of 

 the nevi^ strata had been deposited, the expansive force might, in 

 many instances, continue to act on the same parts of the earth's crust; 

 and consequently would produce dry land where the ancient ocean 

 had flowed, while large portions of what had been dry land, sunk 

 down, and became the bed of the present ocean. Yet, in other in- 

 stances, we must suppose the volcanic agency to have changed its 

 direction ; allowing the former bed of the ocean, which it had ele- 

 vated, to sink down and become the bed of the ocean still; and 

 causing what had been dry land, to rise and become dry land again. 



