282 
DILUVIUM. 
have been in operation from the time the solid rocks 
were deposited up to the general deluge. Here 
were immense materials ready to become the sport 
of a deluge of waters, and to be worked into all the 
fantastic forms and shapes, by currents and counter- 
currents, which we actually find them to have as- 
sumed. 
There is another argument of great weight, which 
proves that a powerful current from the north has 
swept over the country, and that is, the scratches, 
grooves, and furrows often to be seen on the sur- 
faces of rocks that have never been moved from 
their place. These run south and southeast, and 
were evidently made by heavy stones moved over 
their surfaces. The following sketch represents 
such a rock in Massachusetts : 
We have stated that some geologists attribute the 
diluvial deposites to the flood recorded in Scripture, 
and that they also attribute that phenomenon to the 
elevation of the strata. But if, as it is believed, the 
tertiary strata were deposited before the deluge, 
this could not have been the cause of that catastro- 
phe, because the tertiary strata are horizontal, and 
must, therefore, have been deposited after the eleva- 
tion of the solid rocks beneath, or they would have 
been raised and dislocated also. Accordingly, as 
Mr. Hitchcock states, there must have been an in- 
terval long enough between the elevation of the 
strata and the last deluge for the deposition of this 
