342 On the Low Country of North Carolina. 



2. The low country has not been produced by a gradual 

 encroachment of the land upon the sea, but became dry land, 

 throughout its whole extent, or nearly its whole extent, at one 

 time. 



The human mind is very averse to admitting amongst the 

 causes of the phenomena it would explain, such as it has never 

 witnessed the action of; and rather prefers the supposition, 

 that the known causes which are now confessedly inadequate 

 to the effect, are, at sometimes, or have been on some former 

 occasion, so magnified and enlarged, as to acquire the requi- 

 site degree of efficiency. Thus, finding the gulf stream and 

 the waves, such as we now observe them, inadequate to the 

 creation of the low country, we are ready to conceive of some 

 condition of the Antediluvian ocean, when they operated with 

 far greater energy, and when they threw up this district as 

 easily as they now form the low sandy islands that are cover- 

 ed at every tide — that during this state of things, the land en- 

 croached continually upon the sea, till the low country, such 

 as we now behold it, was the final result. 



If, instead of the strata of which this district is composed, 

 we met with a totally irregular and confused collection of 

 heaps of sand, this account of the matter would have more 

 plausibility. The tendency of the irregular action of the 

 waves, beating upon the coast, would be to form such a col- 

 lection, and not those alternate layers of clay and sand, which 

 we actually find. But the extension of the argument, that 

 might be drawn from this source, is rendered altogether unne- 

 cessary, by the appearance of marine organic remains. This 

 is quite decisive of the point, that the low country has not been 

 gradually thrown up by the waves, during either the present 

 or any former condition of the ocean. 



It may be doubted whether Bergman was aware of the 

 strict and philosophical accuracy of his language, and wheth- 

 er he did not consider himself as describing them by an ele- 

 gant metaphor, when he denominated the shells that lie im- 

 bedded in the strata of the globe, the medals of creation. 

 But, that this is their real character, that they furnish us with 

 the only clue that can guide us in our attempts to unravel the 

 ancient history of the earth, and the data from which we are 

 to estimate the number, magnitude, and durations of the re- 

 volutions it has undergone, is becoming more and more evi- 

 dent, from day to day. It is by means of their organic re- 

 mains, that the geology of other countries has been establish- 



