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which have been acting from an indefinite period of time, aided by 
the occasional heavings of strata, effected by subterraneous heat. By 
this system — by the gradual interchange of situation between land 
and water, we might account for the mountains of fossil coral which 
are found at considerable distances from the sea, were it not that so 
little agreement is observable between the fossil and the recent coral. 
Had the coral of the mountain and the coral of the sea been constantly 
the same, it would, indeed, have furnished a powerful evidence of 
the gradual change of relative place in the strata, which were once 
covered by the ocean, but which are now thousands of feet above its 
surface : the gradual receding of the sea would have sufficed for the 
explanation. 
But how, according to this theory, shall we explain the disagreement 
between the coral of the mountain and the coral of the sea ? I see no 
explanation which can be thus obtained : every thing being supposed 
to have proceeded in its regular course, the animals of the first creation 
must then have exactly resembled those of the present hour. Some vast 
change, of powerful and even universal influence, must be sought for, 
to explain this wonderful circumstance : and such, doubtless, can only 
be found in the destruction of a former world. Thus, indeed, we shall 
be enabled to account for the existence of various animals, in a mineral 
state, whose analogues are unknown ; but it must be admitted, that even 
this circumstance is not sufficient to account for the existence of animals 
at the present period, of which no traces can be found in the ruins of 
that former world. 
