BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 



547 



with their almost endless mixtures and sulphureous compositions, — that is to 

 say, we find very different substances introduced into the interstices of strata, 

 from those which had been formed by subsidence at the bottom of the sea. On 

 the other hand, if it is by means of heat and fusion that the loose and porous 

 structure of strata shall be supposed to have been consolidated, then every 

 difficulty which had occurred in reasoning upon the power or agency of water 

 is at once removed. The question then comes, by what means these masses of 

 loose materials collected at the bottom of the sea have been raised above its 

 surface and transformed into solid land. Nothing can be imagined so proper 

 for the elevation of land above the level of the ocean as an expansive power of 

 sufficient force applied directly under these materials. The question is not 

 how the power may be procured, but is it ever employed? It is this, 

 doubtless, which has forced up from a considerable depth of the ocean 

 the Himmalayas, the Andes, or the Alps. And such a power cannot 

 be much less than that required to elevate the highest land upon the 

 globe. When fire bursts forth from the bottom of the sea, as was the case in 

 the new island near Santorini, and when the land is heaved up and down so as 

 overturn cities in an instant, and split asunder rocks and solid mountains, 

 there is no one but must see in this a power which may be sufficient to accom- 

 plish every view of nature in erecting land as it is situated in the position 

 most advantageous for such a purpose. In a stream of melted lava which 

 runs down the sides of Mounts Etna or Hecla, we have a column of weighty 

 matter raised an immense height above the level of the sea, and in the rocks 

 of enormous size which were projected from their craters several miles into 

 the air, it must be acknowledged that there is a liquefying power and expansive 

 force of subterranean or violent heat. But that the islands of Sicily or Ice- 

 land themselves had been raised from the bottom by the same process may also 

 be readily admitted. If then it shall appear that matter which had once been 

 found at the bottom of the sea, and which in some respects is analogous to 

 lava, is now forming dry land above its surface, it will be allowed that we have 

 discovered the secret operations of nature concocting future land, as well as 

 those by which the present habitable earth had been produced from the bottom 

 of the abyss. 



The other papers read were !— > 



" Notes on two Ichthyosauri/*' exhibited at the meeting. By C. Moore^ 

 F.G.S. 



" On the relation of the Eskdale Granite, at Black Comb, to the Schistose 

 Rocks." By J. G. Marshall, F.G.S. 



"On the Sandstones and their associated deposits of the Valley of the 

 Eden and the Cumberland Plains." By Professor Harkness, F.G.S. 



" On some Phenomena connected with the Drift of the Severn, Avon, Wye, 

 and Usk." By the Rev. W. S. Symonds, F.G.S. 



" On the Pleistocene Deposits of the Districts about Liverpool." By G. W. 

 Morton, F.G.S. 



"Notice of some facts' in relation to the Postglacial Gravels of Oxford." 

 By Professor Phillips, F.G.S. 



" Palceontological Remarks upon the Silurian Rocks of Ireland." By W. H. 

 Baily, F.G.S. 



" Comparison of Fossil Insects of England and Bavaria." By Dr. Hagem. 

 " On the Cretaceous Group, in Norfolk." By C. B. Rose, F.G.S. 



