CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 409 



and they invariably exhibit the appearance of deposition from water, 

 sometimes tranquil, sometimes more or less agitated. 



Diluvial waters appear to have first transported, and then, in a state 

 of comparative quietude, to have arranged these masses by sediment- 

 ary deposition. 



The effects of diluvial devastation are in a considerable degree veil- 

 ed, by the gradual depositions of sedimentary matter, during the de- 

 cline of the waters. 



Granting that the earth has been, from any cause, covered by wa- 

 ter, and that it has been in any way withdrawn, there must evidently 

 have been a multitude of local lakes, determined, by the basin shape, 

 so often traced by contiguous hills and high grounds ; in these, sepa- 

 rate and independent deposits were doubtless going on, for a length 

 of time, perhaps even after the earth began to be peopled at the crea- 

 tion, or repeopled after the deluge ; for this view will apply equally to 

 the waters which covered the earth originally, and to those that return- 

 ed upon it by an universal deluge. Those lakes that had no perma- 

 nent supply of water, would, of course, be exhausted by soakage and 

 by evaporation : others would burst their barriers, or gradually wear 

 them down, and during their escape, renew the diluvial ravages; 

 while those only would be perennial, which were fed by streams or 

 springs. 



Many valleys of denudation, as they are called by Prof. Buckland, 

 were probably produced by diluvial action. Such valleys are con- 

 spicuously seen in the South of England: similar strata are found 

 capping contiguous hills, projecting at their sides, and running be- 

 neath their foundations ; a curve or hollow having been scooped out 

 between, thus indicating the effects of great rushing torrents, attend- 

 ed perhaps by convulsions, that more or less, broke up the superficial 

 strata.* 



It is not intended that all valleys were produced in this manner ; 

 many doubtless were thus formed, and many more were thus deepen- 

 ed and modified, but a multitude of them were probably among the 

 original features of the planet, or produced by early convulsions. 



Extraneous contents of the diluvium. 



Single bones, parts of skeletons, and entire skeletons of the larger 

 animals, often of extinct species, but mostly of known genera, are 



♦ See this subject ably investigated and illustrated in the ReliquiiE Diluvianas, 



52 



