No. 5. — 1849 J GEOLOGY OF CEYLON. 



219 



into the narrow streams which now exist on these plains as 

 tributaries to the great Mahawel-ganga. 



While geology fails to tell us how a world was made, this 

 science teaches us how after it was made it was disturbed and 

 altered for the habitation of successive generations of orga- 

 nised beings. Though the ground we walk upon and the 

 hills which surround us are inanimate objects, we ought to 

 remember that they too received and obeyed, and continue 

 to receive and to obey, the laws of the same Creator, 

 who made the grass to grow and animated the world with 

 living beings. When we observe hard adamantine rocks 

 mouldering away into soft clays and earths by the same 

 forces which give life and energy to animal and vegetable 

 natures, we also find that it is one and the same power 

 which reduces both organic and inorganic matters, at later 

 periods, to their primitive elements. To man is given the 

 faculty of observing and recording the operations of this 

 power, though from him is hidden the mysterious nature of 

 that power which was from the beginning, still is, and will 

 at last dissolve the great globe itself. Before the tender 

 herb and scented flowers burst into life and beauty the 

 inorganic world received the care of the Omnipotent God ; 

 and surely what required and received His first attention is 

 deserving of much more than our least. Therefore it is to 

 be hoped that Members of the Asiatic Society of Ceylon, and 

 their friends in different parts of this Island, will make such 

 observation as will contribute to a more perfect knowledge 

 of the Physical History of Ceylon. 



