G30 



THE UNIVEESE. 



a progressively ascending scale, we are quite led to expect 

 new outbursts and more terrible convulsions. 



Man has been enabled to verify these assertions, and 

 himself to behold moimtains issue from the bosom of the 

 earth. In 1538 one formed in the environs of Naples. In 

 1759, at two or three days' journey from Mexico, JoruUo, 

 since so celebrated, reared its volcanic plateau. Above a 



289. Modern Upheaval — Jorullo iu Mexico. 



plain formerly dedicated to agriculture, a surface of ten 

 square leagues was raised into the air and transformed into 

 numerous and ever-active craters. 



This may be a fitting place to say, that many contem- 

 porary geologists maintain that these telluric changes were 

 not the effect of sudden transition, but of slow insensible 

 progress. To the school of Cuvier, which proclaimed the 

 infallibility of this great man, has succeeded another, more 

 sceptical, which maintains that, instead of violent cataclysms 

 returning at successive periods to convulse the globe, it 



