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Geology of Bajigalore, and of 



[Jan. 



world within our little minds, and alter it by our puny imaginings — a 

 world built indeed upon a sandy foundation. Of the conjectural manner 

 of explaining things, such has been, although such is not now, the ten- 

 dency of the science, and it is our inability to enter into the mysteries 

 of time and eternity — the impossibility of throwing the mind back to 

 that beginning when light shined out of darkness, and of understanding 

 the forces which then operated, that has attached to geology the 

 character of not being one of the exact sciences. The ''light which 

 shined in darkness" we only darken by our comments, and it is with us 

 as with the darkness which Scripture tells us "comprehended it not." 



In the history of the earth there are but two grand geological facts re- 

 corded—its formation and its submergence for a time under water. The 

 universal flood, taken so much into consideration in accounting for the 

 present appearance of the earth, has, perhaps, in its influence, with refer- 

 ence to this portion of the globe, been over estimated— may it be suppos- 

 ed th it there was a sudden subsidence of the waters from this the Old 

 Ccn:liv i t. hnving it as it cavae from the hands of its mighty architect, 

 Tea y io be a ga'n peopled, and that there was a gradual retirement of the 

 waters or of the ocp:;^^ ^ orn the new world, with new depositions, and as 

 it were fresh c .\::i.ive bursts— forming and reforming. But leaving what 

 has occiuri.d, to what is daily taking place, something may be here 

 said of the agents now in operation which may have altered the surface 

 of that part of the country, the mineralogioal features of which are 

 about to be described. And first of decomposition, and its chief agent 

 heat — as the human constitution is susceptible of the effects of heat, so 

 are the rocky masses which cover the country and are hourly crumbling 

 into earth. The rays of a tropical sun act so powerfully that a rock 

 when touched communicates to the hand a burning sensation, and the 

 consequence of this heat, is a state of expansion. As soon as by the 

 setting of this powerful luminary, the great agent in expansion, tlie 

 cold evening breezes begin to affect the heated rock, condensation fol- 

 lows ; and this daily process of expansion and condensation carried on 

 for ages establishes a crack which increases till whole masses are sepa- 

 rated. This process of the elements is the one pursued by the natives in 

 quarrying, as they invariably burn logs of wood over the rock to produce 

 a state of expansion, and then sometimes but not always throw cold 

 water upon it— an excellent example of man in total ignorance of the 

 laws of chemistry, observing and imitating the simple laws of nature. 

 These cracks are frequently both perpendicular and horizontal, separat- 

 ing immense cubic masses from each other, the fantastic and irregular 

 appearance of these arising afterwards from unequal decomposition— 



