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Geology of the Environs of Petersburg . 
and wonderful that geology affords, it will be sufficient to state a 
few particulars with regard to their situation in the neighbourhood 
of Petersburg. 
By the specification of the principal varieties which I have 
attempted to give above, it will be seen that all the primitive 
boulders, the analogues of which have been recognized in situ , 
appear to have been transported from the north. They are scattered 
universally over hill and dale ; on the highest summits of the hills, 
and on the shores, and under the waters of the gulf ; and are found 
not only on both sides of the Neva, but far to the south, to the 
east, and to the west of the boundaries of the district I am describing. 
Their waterworn surfaces, their enormous size,* and the remoteness 
of what, without a great stretch of credulity, may be believed to 
have been their ancient seat, seem to leave no other supposition to 
account for their appearance in their present situation, than that of 
their being the gigantic pebbles, rolled and accumulated by the 
greatest aqueous revolution to which this globe has ever been 
exposed, the Mosaic deluge, of which they furnish the most striking 
of the material evidences. This is not the place to enlarge upon 
this subject ; but I may add that the environs of Petersburg, as well 
as every other country, shew those traces of the superficial action 
of vast currents of water, which can only be attributed to the same 
cause. I need only instance the Ropsha and Crasnoe Celo 
* The celebrated block out of which the pedestal which supports the statue of Peter 
the Great, in the Isaac Place, in Petersburg, was a rolled boulder of the red Finland 
granite. It was not brought, as has been asserted, from Siberia, nor, by human means at 
least, from Finland ; but was fouud, among many others of smaller size, in a bog between 
Petersburg and Cesterbeck. It was diminished two thirds, before placing the statue on it. 
A boulder of great size supports a summer-house on the sea shore at Becova, which is 
ascended by a ladder. 
3 i 2 
