Dr Fleming on the Geological Deluge . 223 
Tied to England. But our country has been more highly fa- 
voured. Had it been otherwise, instead of gold reposing at the 
base of the Leadhills, or stream-tin in Cornwall, they had been 
resting far from their birth-place; probably, if the deluge was 
from the north, in the bottom of the Bay of Biscay. 
There is one character exhibited by the boulders in the gra- 
vel, of a truly interesting kind, in a theoretical point of view,— — 
the intervention of valleys between the rocks from whence they 
came and the station they now occupy. It seems to be admitted 
on all hands, that these valleys did not exist at the period of the 
transportation of the gravel. Mr Greenough declares, that 
the blocks of granite on the Jura attest the non-existence of 
the Lake of Geneva at the time of their transportation, ”-~(GrcJ. 
177.) ; and, according to Professor Buckland, 66 the quartzose 
pebbles found on the tops of the hills round Oxford and Henly, 
were drifted thither from the central parts of England, before 
the excavation of the present valley of the Thames.” — {Rel. DU. 
£48.) If, then, we consider the gravel as diluvian, the valleys 
must be regarded as postdiluvian ; or, if we consider the valleys 
as having been formed at the deluge, then the beds of gravel 
must be regarded as antediluvian. Professor Buckland has en- 
deavoured to avoid the admission of these conclusions. It 
seems probable that the first rush of these waters drifted in the 
pebbles within the great escarpment of the oolite, and strewed 
them over the then nearly continuous plains ; and that the val- 
leys were subsequently scooped and furrowed out by the retiring 
action of these same waters.” — {Rel. DU. 253.) Is it conceiv- 
able that this sudden, transient and impetuous deluge, should 
have transported, in its first rush, various kinds of boulders, ten, 
twenty, or hundreds of miles, strewed them over nearly continu- 
ous plains, and then proceeded to scoop and furrow out numerous, 
deep and extensive valleys in these plains, whilst it permitted the 
deposits of its first rush to retain undisturbed possession of the 
station to which they were first brought ? Could I bring my 
mind to assent to such statements, I should claim to rank with 
Judaeus Apella. But the difficulty does not end here. In these 
valleys, supposed to have been excavated by the retiring waters, 
extensive depositions of gravel occur. (Rel. DU. p. 251-2.) This 
