BEITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 
547 
with their almost endless mixtures and sulphureous compositions, — that is to 
kciy, 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 laud 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 ail-, 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 di'y 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 rtt the meeting. By C. Moordi 
" On the relation of the Eskdale Granite, at Black Comb, to the Schistose 
Rocks." By J. G. MarshaU, E.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 Ilev. W. S. Symonds, E.G.S. 
" On the Pleistocene Deposits of the Districts about Liverpool." By G. W. 
Morton, E.G. S. 
"Notice of some facts' in relation to tlie Postglacial Gravels of Oxford." 
" PalfEontological Remarks upon the Silurian Hocks of Ireland." By W. H. 
Baily, F.G.S. 
"Comparison of Eossil Insects of England and Bavaria." By Dr. Hagcm. 
" On the Cretaceous Group, in Norfolk." By C. B. Rose, E.G.S. 
E.G.S. 
