AND THE AVON GOEGE. 
175 
natural operations, will again form new continents, containing 
valleys and mountains exactly similar to those which we at 
present inhabit.” (Barr’s Translation, vol. i., pp. 67, 68.) For 
such heresies as these was Buffon invited by the Sorbonne to 
publish a formal recantation, wherein he said, “ I abandon 
everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth.” 
And modern Geology is for once in accord with the Church in 
deeming heretical such views as these, curious inversions as 
they are of modern geological doctrine. 
For as determinants of the scenery of such a district as ours, 
neither Vulcanism nor Neptunism can supply a vera causa. 
Among geologists the Volcanic error and the Diluvial error are 
well-nigh things of the past. They are forced to shun the 
light and lark in that shadowy land that is tenanted by popular 
notions. The geologist of to-day believes that such ridges as 
border or intersect the Avon Basin are the result, not of 
“ the uplifting and explosive force of vapours, generated within 
the earth by subterranean fires,” but of intense lateral pressure, 
by which the strata were thrown into folds, just as a number of 
pieces of cloth, placed one upon another, will be thrown into 
folds if pressed from side to side. In proof of which he points 
to the fact that if you, in imagination, straighten out the strata 
folds, they will occupy a longer arc of the earth’s surface than 
they do now after the lateral compression. The rocks are not 
blown out as a bubble, and so put on a stretch, they are com- 
pressed into a shorter space; just as are the layers of cloth 
when they are pressed from side to side. And this lateral 
pressure, which would seem to be definitely connected with the 
secular cooling of the earth, has acted, in our district, in the 
main in a N. and S. direction, and has thrown the strata into 
folds having a general E. and W. trend. 
But the ridges that we see are but small fragments of the 
bold curves which were produced by this intense lateral pressure 
