254 Dr George Buisc on the 



When the crust of the whole earth, or any portion thereof, first as- 

 sumed its present character and conformation, it must necessarily have 

 been devoid of rivers until a sufficiency of rain fell to moisten its surface, 

 fill up its hollows, and occasion an overflow; the surplus water passing 

 off in the form of rivulets, brooks, streams, or rivers, to the nearest lower 

 level, and so downward till they found their way to the sea. If we assume 

 the dry land all at one time to have been submerged, and all to have risen 

 directly, either at once or through a long succession of elevations, to its 

 present level, such of the spaces as were depressed below the surrounding 

 country at the time of their emergence, and that so continued, would of 

 course be filled with salt water ; and would probably thus remain, either 

 until evaporation converted it into a mass of solid salt, or until, washed 

 down to the sea by the rains, its place came to be occupied by pure water. 

 In many places, as will presently be seen, fragments of the primeval ocean 

 remain in the bosoms of our continents in nearly the condition in which 

 they originally appeared. Though the most stupendous disturbances and 

 frightful distortion amongst the rocky beds must have occurred at the 

 time of their elevation, there can be no doubt that change and commotion 

 continued long after this, and that ridges, hills, and mountains rose, 

 chasms were split open, and valleys sunk everywhere in multitudes 

 throughout the whole lapse of intervening time ; examples of such things 

 occasionally occurring in volcanic countries down to our own day. 



Just 280 years before Christ, the great fresh-water lake of Oitr in Japan 

 was formed in one night by a prodigious sinking of the ground, at the 

 same time that one of the highest and most active volcanoes in the island 

 rose into existence. The volcanic peak of Jurullo, on the table-land of 

 Mexico, 70 miles from the Pacific, rose on the night of the :29th Septem- 

 ber 1759, 1683 feet above the plain, and is the highest of six mountains 

 that have been thrown up on the table-land since the middle of last cen- 

 tury. In July 1757 a volcanic island arose off Pondicherry, near Madras, 

 and, after remaining for several days above the water, throwing out smoke 

 and flame, disappeared. About the same time Chedooba, and the islands 

 along the shores of Arracan, were suddenly raised about ten feet, having 

 twice before, at intervals, as is supposed, of half a century, sustained 

 similar upheavals. In 1762, during a violent earthquake, a mountain 

 sank and disappeared near Chittagong, in the upper part of the Bay of 

 Bengal; another descended till the summit alone remained visible, while 

 60 square miles of sea shore were permanently submerged. In 1831 a 

 volcano called Graham's Island rose on the coast of Sicily to the height of 

 800 feet, and, after continuing in active conflagration for three months, 

 sank down and vanished beneath the waters ;* and in June 1819, the 

 Runn of Cutch, in our own neighbourhood, sank down, and became a salt- 

 water marsh — a vast mound, called the Ulla Bund, rising in its neighbour- 

 hood, and cutting off from the sea one of the mouths of the Indus. The 

 island of .Bombay and plains of the Deccan must at one time have been on 

 the same level with each other. 



So soon as rain began to fall, all the hollows would be filled up, and 

 transformed into lakes, either with rivers running into them, or out of 

 them, or both. Our great river systems now first make their appearance, 

 and connect in long reaches of nearly stagnant water the original hollows, 

 now transformed into lakes united together by rapids and cataracts. In 

 process of time the more shallow and inconsiderable of these pools would 

 become filled up with mud or gravel, assisted by the hitches and upheavals 

 to which the crust of the earth from the first seems to have been periodi- 



* This volcanic cone was formed principally of ashes and scoriae. There is 

 no proof that it sunk ; but when the further supply of material ceased, the 

 loose matter was quickly washed away by the waves. — (Edit. Phil. Jour.) 



