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it until the two ends meet. In the case of a non-elastic substance, you would 
merely crack it, and away it would go. So it is with the crust of the earth : 
you have a constant pumping out of water from below, and there must be 
some subsidence, and a very material subsidence, from the constant pressure 
of gravitation forcing downwards. A great many geological changes are 
likely to have been produced by that pressure and subsidence. You will have 
heat produced, depending in amount on the chemical action within, the heat 
not being uniform all the way down. The idea of approaching a central fire 
is nonsense. Take- constant forces acting in a uniform way and straining- this 
great globe. You can understand that, after straining steadily for years, a 
cataclysm would take place suddenly ; not that the action. is different, but the 
results are different. No one can look at the rocks which are riven off' and not 
suppose they were riven off by some sudden cataclysm. As to any theory of 
upheaval, that was disposed of and torn to tatters in Professor Kirk’s paper, 
although in a very kindly way. Under such a theory as that, there would be a 
great escape of internal fire, the operations of which we should see ; but there 
really is nothing of the kind. I do not know whether Mr. Pattison believes 
in the upheaval of the Scandinavian coast which he has mentioned, but 
I may point out that in the Geological Magazine of two years ago there is a 
paper by the Earl of Selkirk, who surveyed that coast and found no proof 
of that rising. He went to the very place where L} ell had examined the 
shores, and to other places also, and the result of the survey seemed to 
depend very much upon whether it was high or low tide when the examina- 
tion was made. The arguments which Mr. Pattison uses to show that a 
different action went on before to what takes place now, are inconclusive. 
He says it is because we do not see these things. True, we do not see a man 
grow, but he goes away a boy and he comes back, a man ; and he is the same 
person, although a change has taken place in his appearance. I am not at all 
clear, in reference to one of Mr. Pattison’s statements, — that the accumulation 
of peat-moss has only occurred in recent times. It is true that- we know very 
little of what has happened, but it is very obvious that if peat-moss got over- 
whelmed it would go down ; and how do you know that you do not get 
petroleum and other similar oils from that source ? We know very little 
about it, and I should be glad if Mr. Pattison had seen his way to proving 
divine action from the wonderful uses to which the metals and the oils and 
the various things got out of the earth can be applied. They are so admirably 
adapted to mans use, that we should not know what to do without them. 
But as for building up an argument on any one particular geological theory, 
I should hope no one would suppose that the proof of divine action rests on 
that. There is one passage where Mr. Pattison quotes Mr. Page in the fol- 
lowing words : — 
Mr. Page thus expresses the conclusion : — ‘ Physically and vitally, the 
same phenomena may never be, and indeed are never likely to be, enacted 
again m the same region ; and thus it is that the doctrine of uniformity must 
be held in connection with that of progression and advancement,” 
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