Calcutta Delta. 559 



transgress their proper bounds, some vast upheavements of the sub- 

 merged mass occasioned antipodal depressions into which the waters na- 

 turally subsided, and once more left the rugged and shattered surface 

 of the earth a dry land.* 



Among the ranges then produced, arose the mighty Himalya, which 

 with others in various quarters of the globe rising to a height, which 

 had been before unknown in previous conditions of the Earth, naturally 

 caused a larger body of water to be withdrawn, by which the secon- 

 daries which had hitherto lain submerged, were now exposed and add- 

 ed as dry land to the former Earth, large portions, at least, of which 

 again became uncovered, as we see in the diluvial strata in various 

 countries of the present day. 



With this uprise of land and subsidence of the ocean, commenced the 

 historical or post-diluvian era, from which the origin of all existing 

 rivers and alluvial strata must necessarily date ; and as the waters 

 were violently thrown back by the outburst of the mineral mass, the 

 retiring debacle this formed, naturally carried off with it, in its head- 

 long and irresistible descent, the commingled fragments of the shattered 

 rocks, and again strewed them in its course to form the earliest deposit 

 of the then commencing modern era. 



Here then is the mighty agent by which the materials of the lowest 

 and weightiest strata of our present alluvial plains were hurried from 

 the mountains to distances now unattainable to the pebbles of the pre- 

 sent streams, and to this agent I would refer the deposition of the fossi- 

 liferous conglomerate of the Gangetic Delta. 



From the accumulation of this stratum, until the present time, the 

 formation of alluvial matter has been progressive, and entirely carried 

 on by the existing rivers of our continent, varying according to the 

 mildness or severity of the seasons, the consequent power of transport 

 of the rivers, and the deficiency or abundance of detritus. 



I do not think it necessary now to enter farther on the subject, as I 

 shall have occasion, in the regular essays I have promised you, to notice 

 the various changes the Earth has experienced, more fully than my 

 present space will admit of; and euough is here said to shew, that the 

 doctrines advocated in the paper under consideration, are at least in 

 part erroneous. 



From the foregoing remarks, therefore, it would perhaps appear, that 



* Although we have proofs of the rising and sinking of the land, there are none to shew that 

 the level of the sea has ever undergone any great change, and the language of Scripture in 

 this respect is therefore regarded as figurative, or adapted to the mind of man in the infancy of 

 society. — Ed. 



