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HUTTONIAN THEORY 



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wo 



uld gradually diflblve them, and form of 

 courfe a very deep and extenfive lake, where all 

 was before dry land. This event is not only 

 poffible, but it fliould fcem, that in the courfe 

 of things it muft neceflarily happen. 



326. Something of this kind may have taken 

 place in the track of the Rhone, and may have 

 produced the Leman Lake. It is not impoffible, 

 that, at a very remote period, the Rhone de- 

 fcended from the Alps v/ithout forming any 

 lake, or at lead any lake of which the remains 

 are now exifting ; and this fuppofition, which is 



more probable than that of § 324, we fliall foon 

 find to be conformable to appearances of another 

 kind. The river may have wore away the fecon- 

 dary limellone ftrata over w^hich it took hs 

 courfe after it left the fchiftus of the mountains : 



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• • ^^g Jif; and, in doing fo, may have reached fome ilra- 



tum of a faline nature, and this being walhed 

 out, may have left behind it a lake, v>^hich is but 

 modern compared Vv^ith many of the revolutions 

 that have happened on the furface of the earth ^. 

 This explanation is no doubt hypothetrcal ; 



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but it is propofed in one of thofe cafes, in 



which 



* There are fait fprings at Bex, near Aigle, about 

 ten miles from the head of the lake : faline llrata, there- 

 fore, are probably at no great diilancc. 



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