i88i.l Scepticism in Geology. 325 
overcome the resistance of a mountain mass, to lift the Alp.s 
or Andes, and at the same time to break them up into gorges 
and valleys, was assuredly due to no modified violence, no 
gentle taps renewed from time to time. In order to fully 
understand the magnitude of the work to be done by these 
gentle jogs, let us transport ourselves for a time into the 
midst of some of the grandest scenes of Nature’s operations. 
Listen to the evidence of an unbiassed geological observer, 
possessing a minute knowledge of the highest mountain- 
chain, the Himalayas. ‘ The whole mass,’ says Mr. Bland- 
ford, in a Report attached to the Geological Survey of India 
(p. 68), * has been broken and disturbed, the rocks on one 
side of the fraCture having been lifted up many thousands of 
feet, and crushed and crumpled together as the leaves of a 
book might be if placed edgeways between the boards of a 
powerful press. If we continue the section through the 
whole chain of the Himalaya, for some hundred miles, and 
still further into Thibet and the plain of the great Gobi, we 
should still find the same evidence of crushing and contor- 
tion. Here, then, is the work of a power compared to which 
the greatest of earthquakes sinks into insignificance. Since 
man began to record his experience of natural catastrophes 
no one has ever witnessed such gigantic movements of the 
crust of the Earth as here stand in existence.’ ” 
“ Verifier ” observes that the advocates of modern causes 
account for the formation of mountains by some upheaving 
force aCting from below, which idea underlies all their spe- 
culations. “ Lyell,” he says, “ refers the elevation of 
mountain-chains to the effects of subterranean power, simi- 
lar to that which causes volcanic eruptions ; yet no one has 
satisfactorily ascertained the seat or origin of a power which, 
like that of the fabled giant of old, is to rise up under its 
mountain burthen. . . . Volcanoes are a purely collateral 
phenomena, which have existed in all ages of our planet. 
They are to it what boils and pustules are to the human 
body, a sort of safety-valve. Through holes in the Earth’s 
crust they throw up cinder and lava heaps, veins, and dykes, 
after the manner of huge furnace chimneys, ejecting molten 
matter at their mouths or sides, which sometimes rises into 
permanent mountains and islands, but seldom effecting 
movement in the strata adjoining. In nine cases out of ten 
the outburst of trap and basalt has not raised the adjacent 
strata.” 
In opposition to Lyell, “ Verifier” suggests that a lateral 
in place of a vertical movement has been the cause of 
the great natural operations which have given our Earth its 
