106 



CHAPTER VI. 



SUPPOSED INTENSITY OF AQUEOUS FORCES AT REMOTE PERIODS 



INTENSITY OF AQUEOUS CAUSES— SLOW ACCUMULATION OF STRATA PROVED 

 BY FOSSILS— RATE OF DENUDATION CAN ONLY KEEP PACE WITH DEPOSITION 



ERRATICS, AND ACTION OF ICE DELUGES, AND THE CAUSES TO WHICH 



THEY ARE REFERRED SUPPOSED UNIVERSALITY OF ANCIENT DEPOSITS. 



Intensity of aqueous causes.— The great problem alluded 

 to at the close of the last chapter may thus be stated, 



former changes of the earth made 

 resemble 



progress 



This question may be contemplated from several 

 points of view, and it embraces among other subjects the 

 enquiry, whether there are any grounds for the belief enter- 

 tained by many, that the intensity both of aqueous and of 

 igneous forces, in remote ages, far exceeded that which we 

 witness in our own times. 



First, then, as to aqueous causes : it has been shown in 

 our history of the science, that Woodward did not hesitate, 

 in 1695, to teach that the entire mass of fossiliferous strata 

 contained in the earth's crust had been deposited in a few 

 months ; and, consequently, as their mechanical and deriva- 

 tive origin was already admitted, the reduction of rocky 



masses 



mud 



the same to a distance, and their accumulation elsewhere in 

 regular strata, were all assumed to have taken place with a 

 rapidity unparalleled in modern times. This doctrine was 



modified 



as 



different classes of 



remains 



been studied with attention. Analogy led every naturalist 



assume 







6 





