■^2 THE LAW OF DEPOSIT VI. 



of the waves and currents of the sea, either by floods or by the subsidence of the 

 land it had been removed by their action, and distributed over the great depths of 

 the ocean the form and size of the continents would have been very different from 

 the present. It would have been lost in space, instead of serving, as it does now, to 

 fill up the cavities between the olden strata, to level off plains, and to create the 

 comparatively uniform platform which is the actual stage of human existence. 



To prevent this waste and diffusion, and to secure the actually existing state of 

 things, we may conceive to be the office of the law of deposit of the flood tide. 



By virtue of this law, which, as I have said before, may be resolved into two 

 modes of action, one the transporting power of the flood, the other the mechanical 

 force of the wave of translation; the sedimentary matter, especially of the coarse 

 sort, is repelled by the sea, returned again to the base of the mountains from which 

 it was originally taken, and distributed with something like equality over the vast 

 spaces that divide them. And the admitted state of gradual elevation of the 

 continents must have been particularly favorable to the operation of this law, on 

 account of the long, shallow, and sloping basins and beaches which it created. 



And this view finds some confirmation in the character of the sea bottom. 

 Wherever soundings of great depth have been obtained, the bottom has been found 

 to be of the finest mud, such as, when dry, becomes almost an impalpable powder. 

 And this is the lighter sedimentary matter, which, approaching somewhat to the 

 specific gravity of water, is removed by the river currents penetrating far into the 

 sea, and subsides in the ocean beyond the influence of the tidal currents ; the latter 

 being most rapid and most influential nearer the coast. But at a limited distance 

 from the shore, along the sea border of the Atlantic States, and to a hmited depth,, 

 the bottom is sand, the sand of the beaches. Here, then, is exhibited the outer 

 terminus of this aggregation of the coarser matter around the nuclei of its origin, 

 the skeletons, of which it constitutes, as it were, the flesh and muscles. It has for 

 this purpose been sifted out by the water. 



In this paper, reference has been made to the probable effects of the atmospheric 

 fluctuations, which there is every reason to suppose must have been much more 

 violent and very different from those of our time. But it readily suggests itself, 

 that these must have exerted great influence in producing the present state of things, 

 as far as it has been brought about by oceanic forces, (through their control of these 

 forces,) when we consider that the great waves of the sea, which are waves of the 

 second order, after breaking upon a shore, are changed into waves of the first order, 

 in which the particles have the motion of translation, or the projectile force, and 

 that this form of wave continues to the very edge of the water, and ends its life 

 on the dry land, its mechanical force being in proportion to its height. 



The effect of general oceanic currents having one constant direction, would be 

 the same as that of the flood current, both in the power of conveying matter, and 

 in that of modifying the manner in which the waves break on the shore, where, of 

 course, this current came in contact with the land. 



And finally it will be observed again, that although I have selected the latest 

 period of great organic change, and the one that has been the most fruitful in the 

 creation and supply of loose materials, suited to conform to the aqueous action, as 



