36 
of nature during countless ages, under the uniform action of 
minor agencies '? 
For the accuracy of the views now submitted we have the 
analogies presented in the Sacred prophecies, the records of 
previsions accorded to the inspired writers by the Great 
Author of Nature, as to events in the future of our earth's 
destinies, when "the end shall be with a flood and deso- 
lation," " and there shall be rivers and streams of water on 
the top of every high mountain, and every high hill," which 
"they that escape shall be upon the mountains," fleeing to 
the dens and the tops of the rugged rocks, when " the earth 
shall reel to and fro like a drunkard," and shall be "over- 
turned," or "turned upside down," and the stars appear to 
fall from heaven, all being the changes symptomatic of the 
earth's loss of equilibi'ium, and change of position, as inclined 
upon the plane of her orbit ; and the disruption of her 
oceanic envelope, as to its previous banders, or land-locked 
limits. As to discoveries of ancient beaches, with accumu- 
lated banks of remains of shell fish, interspersed with human 
relies, in various maritime countries of Europe, is it any 
wonder that the oceanic envelope, if formerly concentrated 
to a different centre of gravity, should have stood higher on 
some coast lines, or lower on others, than now ? How other- 
wise could it obey the imperative natural law of terrestrial 
gravitation ? And as regards the kind of natural classifi- 
cation of drifted materials shown in the heaping up of the 
lighter portions of shells, bones, &c, of the " kitchen 
middens " of the Danish coasts, what is it but analogous to 
what we observe on our own coasts, where action of the surf 
or waves sometimes separate the shingle, shells, yellow sand, 
black sand, sea foam, sea weeds, and bulkier particles of 
drift, from combination with each other, and deposits each, 
oven to each kind of shell sometimes, in distinct banks or 
layers. The laws regulating such separation, drift, and 
aggregated deposit of varied materials, of little relative 
difference as to specific gravity, may not be clear to lis, and 
are probably those relating to shore currents, which, on the 
larger scale of the incoming rush of the waves of a deluge, 
would classify and accumulate the triturated debris, washed 
from many lands, on coast lines, as now on the lesser scale 
above noted. There is much that is as yet unintelligible to 
us, even as to the movements of the rippling wavelets, as 
they gently lap the sandy beach on the calmest day. How 
comes it that in some cases the marginal sands are eroded 
even up to the cliffs, and elsewhere accumulated I Some 
areas of sand are washed smooth and flat, others are indented 
