539 
Chaptek XX. 
Proofs of Design in the Effects of Disturbing 
Forces on the Strata of the Earth. 
In the proofs of the agency of a wise, and 
powerful, and benevolent Creator, which we 
have derived from the Animal and Vegetable 
kingdoms, the evidence has rested chiefly on 
the prevalence of Adaptations and Contrivances, 
and of Mechanisms adapted to the production ot 
certain ends, throughout the organic remains of 
a former world. 
An argument of another kind may be founded 
on the Order, Symmetry, and Constancy, of the 
Crystalline forms of the unorganized Mineral 
ingredients of the Earth. But in considering 
the great geological phenomena which appear 
hi the disposition of the strata, and their various 
accidents, a third kind of evidence arises from 
conditions of the earth, which are the result of 
disturbing forces, that appear to a certain degree 
to have acted at random and fortuitously. 
Elevations and subsidences, inclinations and 
Contortions, fractures and dislocations, are phe- 
nomena, which, although at first sight they pre- 
sent only the appearance of disorder and con- 
