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From what cause it proceeded, it will, perhaps, be impossible 
ever to determine ; but there is certainly reason to believe, that the 
waters of the deluge possessed a very considerable solvent power 
over even those earths which we consider as most untractable. 
From the intermixture and crystallization of these proceeded those 
silicious and spathous veins which alternate with and intersect the 
various strata, which form that part of the earth which has been 
subjected to our examination. 
Not only the form, but the substance, of the surface of the 
newly-formed postdiluvian world must have differed very much 
from that which existed before the flood; vast and innumerable 
must have been the changes, which it must have undergone, before 
the respective situations of the waters, and of the dry land, could 
have even made an approach to stability. From the violent action 
of the waters at the period of their first effusion over the earth, 
as well as during their residence and their departure, the continuity 
of the earth must have been broken in many places ; necks of 
land must have been left, forming, according to circumstances, 
isthmuses or promontories ; vast masses of earth, considerably un- 
dermined, would remain on the superior parts, and on the decli- 
vities of mountains ; and, as vegetation would doubtlessly be rapidly 
renewed, wherever the earth became uncovered from the waters, 
these projecting parts would soon be covered by the verdure of 
various vegetables. But the newly-formed surface would, perhaps, 
for a considerable period, be continually undergoing a change of 
its form ; the waters, urged by violent tempests, and agitated by 
receiving the immense fragments of falling mountains, might sepa- 
rate those necks of land of which we have just spoken, and which 
its slower action had been continually reducing ; the divulsed parts 
of which, with the vegetation they bore, would sink in the waters 
of the ocean. Thus also, by the force of tempestuous winds, and 
even by the gradual influence of the weather, large projecting and 
