■ GEOLOGY. 57X 



the sea; from thence came these grand scenes of deluges 

 mentioned in the cosmogonies of all nations. These 

 upliftings, of which at least fifteen or sixteen have been 

 made out, terminated by the rising of the chain of tlie 

 Andes, the result of an immense rent extending almost 

 from one pole to the other. This, by lifting up the two 

 Americas above the ocean, raised the prodigious mass of 

 water which submerged the ancient continent, and pro- 

 duced the Mosaic deluge. Thus fire and water successively 

 remodelled the surface of the globe. 



It is to be remarked that the crust of the earth in break- 

 ing foUoAvs a fixed determinate direction. Von Buch, 

 Hvmiboldt, and M. Elie de Beaumont have, in speaking of 

 this subject, called our attention to the fact, that all the 

 great mountain chains have been developed from the north 

 to the south as the Andes and Ural, or from west to east 

 as in the Atlas chain. 



It is evident that each telluric phase had its peculiar 

 organic forms, and that the species of animals of one 

 geological epoch neither lived before nor after this epoch. 

 Humboldt himself, the most illustrious philosopher of 

 modern times, embraces this opinion without any qualifi- 

 cation. " Each upheaval," he says, " of these mountain 

 chains of which we can determine the relative antiquity, 

 has been signalized by the destruction of ancient species 

 and the appearance of new organisms." 



It is impossible to be more explicit. The Rev. Dr. 

 Buckland professes the same opinion, and says that numer- 

 ous groups of animals and plants have already had their 

 beginning and their end, and that creative intervention 

 must have manifested itself at the appearance of each of 

 them. 



Telluric phenomena have not been abandoned to the 



