504 ACTION OF HEAT MOBIFIED 



interest ; and those scenes by which the principles of this science 

 are brought into view in the most striking manner, are unknowrx 

 to many persons best capable of appreciating their vahae. The 

 most important, and at the same time, the most astonishing 

 truth which we learn by any geological observations, is, that 

 rocks and mountains now placed at an elevation of more than 

 two miles above the level of the sea, must at one period have 

 lain at its bottom. This is undoubtedly true of those strata of 

 limestone which contain shells ; and the same conclusion must 

 be extended to the circumjacent sti-ata. The imagination 

 struggles against the admission of so violent a position; but- 

 must yield to the force of unquestionable evidence ; and it is 

 proved by the example of the most eminent and cautious ob- 

 servers, that the conclusion is inevitable.* 

 Thatthemoim- Another question here occurs, which has been well treated 

 etevate^d^out of ^Y ^^^' P^^yf^i^'- H^s the sea retreated from the mountains ? 

 the sea, is much or have they risen out of the sea ? He has shewn, that the bal- 

 thalfthat the ^ ^^^® °^ probability is incomparably in favour of the latter 

 sea subsided supposition ; since, in order to maintain the former, we must 

 from them. t r r i i ^i • t 



dispose of an enormous mass of sea, whose depth is several 



miles, and whose base is greater than the surface of the whole 

 sea. Whereas the elevation of a continent out of the sea like 

 ours, would not change its level above a few feet ; and even 

 were a great derangement thus occasioned, the water Avould 

 easily find its level without the assistance of any extraordinary 

 supposition. The elevation of the land, too, is evinced by what 

 has occasionally happened in volcanic regions, and aflPords' a 

 complete solution of the contortion and erection of strata, which 

 are almost universally admitted to have once lain in a plane and 

 horizontal position. 



"Whatever opinion be adopted as to the mode in which the 

 land and the water have been separated, no one doubts of the 

 ancient submarine situation of the strata. 

 They were ovi- An important series of facts proves, that they were likewise 

 with other^'^^ subterranean. Every thing indicates that a great quantity of 

 earth. matterhas been removed from what now constitutes the surface 



of our globe, and enormous deposites of loose fragments, evi- 

 dently detached from masses similar to our common rock, evince 



* Saussure, Vojagcs dans les Alpes, torn. ii. p. 99—104. 



the 



