GEOLOGY OF SOME OF THE RIVER- SCENERY OF DERBYSHIRE. 1 59 



torn open by some terrible convulsion of nature was adopted 

 without hesitation, and, we may say, without much consideration. 

 Instances without number could be given in which this theory 

 was accepted in spite of the fact that, the strata on the opposite 

 sides of a river-gorge did not exhibit the faintest trace of 

 disturbance, and although the river was manifestly flowing over 

 a massive bed of rock in which there was not the slightest 

 rupture. In the affairs of everyday life, no man appeals to the 

 supernatural for an explanation of any circumstance until all 

 natural causes are proved inadequate. So in the interpretation 

 of nature it is now, happily, no longer considered scientific or 

 reasonable to appeal to the " cataclysmal " and "abnormal," until 

 it is manifest that ordinary and regular operations can afford 

 no solution. The Astronomer demands Space ; the Geologist 

 postulates Time. Let there be given a sufficient length of time 

 and all the features we have described can be fully explained by 

 agencies which we see every moment at work around us. Scenery 

 is as much the result of law and law-directed forces as the original 

 formation of the rocks, out of which scenery is carved. The 

 Catastrophic Geology of the early part of this century no longer 

 exists ; in the words of one of the most thoughtful and striking of 

 modern works* — " Its fallacy was soon and thoroughly exposed. 

 The advent of modified uniformitarian principles all but banished 

 the word catastrophe from science, and marked the birth of Geology 

 as we know it now. Geology, that is to say, had fallen at last into 

 the great scheme of Law." 



* " Natural Law in the Spiritual World," by Henry Drummond, F.R.S.E., 

 F.G.S. 



