404 CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 



Organized Remains deposited from Water, hut not from a Tran^ 



sient Deluge. 



It is scarcely possible to doubt, that the process of animal and veg- 

 etable deposition in a mineralized state described above, was that 

 which really happened. Whatever may have been the operations of 

 fire, at preceding or subsequent periods, it is impossible that it should 

 have been concerned in the first formation of the mineral strata, 

 which contain numerous organized remains. Animal or vegetable 

 life could never be produced or sustained in the midst of fire ; and in- 

 deed, it is quite incredible, that strata, containing distinct organized 

 remains, were ever melted ; nor is it easy to imagine, that they could 

 be even softened, in any great degree, without destroying or material- 

 ly deranging the organized structure.* 



It appears evident also that the mineralized plants and animals 

 of the solid strata have not been collected in these situations, by any 

 sudden and local, or even general catastrophe, for as an author re- 

 marks, " among the immense number of fossil shells, many are re- 

 markable for their extreme thinness, delicacy and minuteness, of parts, 

 none of which have been injured, but on the contrary are most perfectly 

 preserved." Among the plants of the coal formation situated some- 

 times hundreds and thousands of feet below the surface, and covered by 

 many beds of solid rocks, their leaves, many of which are of the most 

 tender and delicate structure, are often found fully expanded, in 

 their natural position, in regard to the rest of the plant, and laid out, 

 with as much precision as in the hortus siccus of a botanist. It is 

 often true that the minutest parts do not appear to have suffered attri* 

 tion or injury of any kind. 



Fragmentary RocJcs. 



The rocks composed of fragments and rounded water worn pebbles 

 afl-brd us the strongest evidence of progressive destruction, deposi- 

 tion and consolidation. 



Among the transition rocks, we find (in general) for the first time, 

 fragments both rounded and angular of all the previous rocks ; some- 



* October 21, 1833. — A day or two since, I observed a common hard baked 

 brick, lyins: in the pavement of a street in this town, (New Haven, Conn.) bear- 

 ing a distinct and beautiful impression of a scallop shell (pecten); the shell was 

 gene, being doubtless destroyed by the fire, while its impress remained. Strata 

 that have been ignited may therefore retain the forms of organic bodies, which 

 would of course be destroyed by the heat. 



