28 On the Geological Distribution of Gold. 



existing organic and inorganic objects — gigantic forests were 

 torn up by the root, all soils and strata were removed — 

 in a word, all but the firm rock had to yield to the mighty 

 floods, which carrying off all before them, naturally brought 

 their vegetable and animal spoils through immense outlets, 

 which for the most part terminated at the sea, where they 

 were buried. For this reason, in many localities, vestiges 

 of the higher order cf animal life, and of the then existing 

 gigantic vegetation, are not to be found ; though in some, 

 those interesting relics of a far remote past are recorded in 

 the annals of geology. 



The denudation having been completed, the sites of former 

 luxuriant woods and verdant fields, occupied by numerous 

 animated beings, were destroyed — whole tracts converted into 

 naked hillocks, barren plains, and deep furrowed channels, in 

 which the objects of destruction were still moving as the re- 

 mainder of their spoils, leaving at intervals some temporary 

 reservoirs, stored with materials for . the following arrange- 

 ments, i.e., the levelling operations, or the distribution of the 

 Pleistocene materials, viz., the diluvial detritus. In these 

 temporary reservoirs we may imagine that the animal re- 

 mains had been retained, awaiting their ultimate entomb- 

 ment with the deposits in which they are transmitted to their 

 present observers or admirers. 



The portion of our globe thus treated represented a desert, 

 as it were, in total abandonment. Did it remain in this 

 desolate condition for any length of time ? There exist rea- 

 sons to suppose that it did so: — 1st, as we in various parts of 

 the globe find that the diluvial detritus rests on a decomposed 

 rock (granitic or schistic), which change must have taken 

 place by exposure to the atmosphere, posterior to the 

 denudation; 2nd, in some arenaceous clay-beds of the pre- 

 ceding geological period we see great fissures, which are filled 

 with diluvials carrying gold, wherefore it appears that these 

 fissures were produced posterior to the denudation; which 

 circumstances indicate that a considerable length of time 

 would be required for their accomplishment. In certain dis- 

 tricts of the globe it also appears that after the denudation 

 an intermediate period of quietude had prevailed before the 

 outbreak and distribution of the subsequent detritus, as several 

 kinds of conglomerates were deposited, masses of a porous 

 quartz and ferruginous clay, also conglomerations of bones 

 in great numbers cemented together by a ferruginous 

 compound. These accumulations demanded a slow and 



