OLD OCEAN COMMENCES WORK. 57 



sea. To-day we may gather up the fragments, not from 

 the bottom of the sea, but raised again mountain high, or 

 incorporated into the fabric of new-built continents ! Sub- 

 lime ruins ! What are the marbles of Nineveh, or the col- 

 umns of the Parthenon, in comparison with these hoary 

 relics of Nature's primeval structures ? 



I said that the fury of the waves strewed the ocean's bed 

 with the ruins of these ancient islands. This is no fancy. 

 The demonstration is before our eyes. The floor of the sea 

 was first formed of rocks that had cooled from a state of 

 fusion. The few islands that existed were b>ut exposed 

 portions of this floor. The debris scattered over this foun- 

 dation would be arranged in layers, as water always ar- 

 ranges its sediments. The coarser materials would be 

 transported by the more powerful action and deposited in 

 one place ; the finer materials would be carried beyond by 



Fig. 15. Shore Erosion and Distribution of Sediments, 

 a, a. The primordial igneous crust, b. A sea-side cliff gnawed by the waves, c. 

 The ordinary sea-level, d. The ruins of the cliff— the coarser deposited near 

 the shore, and the finer floated to greater depths. 



the feebler agency, and deposited in a remoter region. 

 Thus some of the first-formed strata would be finer and 

 others would be coarser ; but all must be composed of ma- 

 terials derived from the pre-existing rocks. This deduction 

 is again corroborated by well-known facts. Every where 

 do we find reposing upon the ancient igneous floor a bed 

 of stratified materials composed of the same constituent 



C2 



