36 Correspondence — Mr. G. IL Kinahan. 



pebbles set on end, those larger stones suspended in what was once a 

 plastic mud, that distinct line of demarcation between the moved 

 and unmoved ground usually marked with slikenside if you look 

 for it, those beds bent back and dragged down hill — nay, sometimes 

 bent over on level ground : all these are indications of some universal 

 agency, bringing the surface into the state in which we see it. What 

 power was competent to produce, not one of, but all these effects ? 



The modern changes in the form of the ground, by the growth of 

 peat, the silting up of valleys, the erosion of the banks of streams, 

 the slipping of hill-sides under the action of springs, will help the 

 close student of the subject to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion upon 

 the older mode of denudation ; for they will show him that the pre- 

 sent agency of rain, and rivers, and springs, is modifying, not 

 continuing to produce, the original contour of the ground. Until all 

 these indications of form and condition of the surface are patiently 

 and honestly studied, this question will continue to vex the geolo- 

 gical mind, and to occupy the valuable pages of your Magazine. 



0. Fisher. 



Harlton, Cambridge. 



P.S. — The above was written before the appearance of the 

 December number of the Magazine, and has no reference to the 

 papers therein contained. 



THE EARTH'S FEATURES. 



Sir, — " The true views of the operations of nature in sculpturing the 

 surface of the earth can never he arrived at unless we take into con- 

 sideration the effects of all possible agencies, and give them their due 

 place in the great worTc.''^ 



Never were truer words spoken than the above, — Marinists may 

 rave about what their special agent can do ; so may Suhaerialists pro- 

 per, Glacialists, and every other ists, but unprejudiced observers will 

 find that all the different agencies work hand in hand, and that if 

 any of them had been absent, the present features of the earth could 

 not have been formed as we now find them. 



Why is it necessary that any new theory should be invented or 

 any special theory adopted to account for the present features of the 

 Earth ? Why not rather allow the existing forces to do the work 

 nature has assigned each ? Let the changes in the earth be con- 

 sidered from " the beginning," and may not a solution for most, if 

 not for all, the apparent difficulties be found ? To suit the special 

 theories, various forms have been suggested as the first ; but is there 

 one of them so simple or better than that given in The Book — " The 

 earth was without form and void, and the spirit of God moved on the 

 face of the water." From this, the oldest record, it would appear that 

 at " the beginning," the earth was surrounded by an envelope of water. 

 Moreover, this statement agrees with present conditions; for a 

 similar phenomenon might again occur if all the land was sunk in 

 the depths of the ocean. This sea, as proved by Mr. Campbell in 

 *' Frost and Fire," must have been motionless, there being no light 

 ^ Hull, " Geol. Mag." Vol. IV. p. 569. 



