148 ON THE REVOLUTIONS. 



w ness, but may have concealed the strength of their cause. I 

 " have, therefore, been combating an enemy that was in some 

 n respects unknown, and I may have supposed him dislodged, 

 " only because I could not find his strong holds." 



The charge of obscurity here brought forward, is very appli- 

 cable to the diluvian system of Saussure and De Luc, in what 

 regards the origin of the torrent, or the disposal of the water 

 after it had overwhelmed the land. The same charge seems 

 not, however, to apply to the suggestion of Professor Pallas, 

 who, in an early work, entitled, Observations sur la Formation 

 des Montagues, first published in 1777, has very explicitly a- 

 scribed the inundation by which he conceives the continent of 

 Asia to have been overwhelmed, to the action of volcanoes ri- 

 sing in the Indian Sea, and forming the Moluccas, the Philip- 

 pines, and other islands, known or supposed to be volcanic. 



It must be admitted, that such an event may occasion- 

 ally have happened. But the occurrence of similar catastrophes 

 may be inferred in a manner still more general and unequivocal, 

 from those Plutonic* revolutions the reality of which has been 

 established by Dr Hutton's observations. According to his 

 system, all our strata once lay at the bottom of the sea, and 

 have been raised into their present situation by the subterra- 

 nean and submarine exertions of heat, similar to that which ap- 

 pears externally in the volcanoes. And the angular fractures 

 exhibited by these beds on many occasions, prove that this 

 elevation was performed in such cases when the mass was in 

 a hard state. It is obvious, then, that the same principle 

 which I lately attempted to apply (page 87. of this volume) to 

 the volcanic phenomena, as exhibited in the Atrio del Cavallo, 

 will apply to those Plutonic revolutions j and we are authori- 

 sed 



* I need scarcely say, that by the term Plutonic, I mean to characterize that 

 geological system in which the principal agent is heat acting under Compression, 



