222 Capt. Huttoris Geological Report. [No. 111. 



of snow, in reducing still more the temperature of the earth, and in fur- 

 nishing those supplies to the rivers and streams, which are so essential 

 to the welfare of organised creation ; and, lastly, perhaps it may be added, 

 to stand forth with their imbedded fossils as eternal and convincing monu- 

 ments of man's fall and punishment, and of the truths so simply stated 

 in the Scriptures. 



My own opinions lead me to conclude, that when the waters of the 

 ocean had risen over, and, as in the beginning again enclosed the earth in 

 its cold embrace, and had effected the punitory offices for which it was 

 permitted to transgress its bound, the lofty mountain ranges which now 

 adorn the surface of our earth were successively upheaved through the 

 agency of submarine volcanic powers, forming in the depths of ocean vast 

 indentations or depressions, corresponding in magnitude to the masses 

 which were upheaved upon the opposite surface, and into which depressions 

 or vacuities, by the laws of nature still in force, the waters would have 

 rushed or risen, forced down as they were by the pressure of the superin- 

 cumbent atmosphere, and thus as each successive upheavement took 

 place, the waters being drawn downwards would have again retired from 

 the surface of the earth, into the place appointed to receive them ; the 

 same as on that third creative day when, as recorded in the Scriptures, 

 they were commanded " to gather themselves together, that the dry land 

 might appear." 



Nor does this theory of submarine upheavements appear to be unsup- 

 ported by the opinions of able geologists, for we find in the words of Dr. 

 Buckland, " that trachyte and lava being ejected through apertures in 

 granite, prove that the source of volcanic fires is wholly unconnected 

 with the pseudo-volcanic results of the combustion of coal, bitumen, or 

 sulphur, in stratified formations, and is seated deep beneath the primary 

 rocks."* 



Among the vast mountain ranges which were then upheaved, the Hima- 

 lya stands pre-eminent, and as it rose towering upwards from beneath the 

 waters of the deluge, the lake in question, and doubtless many more, may 

 have been borne on high enclosed among its loftiest ridges. If such were 

 the case, its waters which at first were salt, would afterwards have be- 

 come fresh, from the cause already stated. Or if no such lake were borne 

 aloft, then must it have accumulated in after times from the snows above, 

 until bursting through the barriers of gneiss, which had hitherto confined 

 it, the valley would have been left nearly as we find it in the present day. 



The solution of the problem must therefore be sought for in the strata 

 and appearances which the valley now exhibits. 



* For an illustration of this, see Fig. 5. 



