34 CAUSE OF VIOLATIONS OF CONTINUITY. [Ch. III. 



one being Roman, while, as in the former example, the lowest 

 was Greek, and the uppermost Italian, he would then perceive 

 the fallacy of his former opinion, and would begin to suspect 

 that the catastrophes, whereby the cities were inhumed, might 

 have no relation whatever to the fluctuations in the language of 

 the inhabitants ; and that, as the Roman tongue had evidently 

 intervened between the Greek and Italian, so many other 

 dialects may have been spoken in succession, and the passage 

 from the Greek to the Italian may have been very gradual, 

 some terms growing obsolete, while others were introduced 

 from time to time. 



If this antiquary could have shown that the volcanic pa- 

 roxysms of Vesuvius were so governed as that cities should be 

 buried one above the other, just as often as any variation 

 occurred in the language of the inhabitants, then, indeed, the 

 abrupt passage from a Greek to a Roman, and from a Roman 

 to an Italian city, would afford proof of fluctuations no less 

 sudden in the language of the people. 



So in Geology, if we could assume that it is part of the plan 

 of nature to preserve, in every region of the globe, an unbroken 

 series of monuments to commemorate the vicissitudes of the 

 organic creation, we might infer the sudden extirpation of 

 species, and the simultaneous introduction of others, as often 

 as two formations in contact include dissimilar organic fossils. 

 But we must shut our eyes to the whole economy of the 

 existing causes, aqueous, igneous, and organic, if we fail to 

 perceive that such is not the plan of Nature. 



