102 
HISTORY OF THE EARTH. 
permost. Whether we suppose the animals to have lived and 
died on the spot wliere their remains are found, or that those 
remains were brought in from abroad, and deposited in the places 
where they now lie, the inference must be the same. Two strata 
are in contact with each other ; they are composed of different 
materials ; one is a limestone, the other made up of particles of 
sand ; they envelope different or»;anic remains ; they were both 
deposited from water. Can any thing be clearer than that the 
lower stratum was deposited first, a succession of ages being per¬ 
haps occupied in its formation ; that at the end of that time a 
great revolution occurred, by which the condition either of the 
whole surface of the globe, or of a particular part of it, was chang¬ 
ed, and by which many of the animals then existing on it were 
destroyed, since no traces of them are found in the rocks formed 
since that epoch. 
A new order of things now arose, new races of living creatures 
came into being, and through the influence of causes which are 
unknown to us, a stratum of a different character was deposited. 
A second revolution supervened, swept off those new races and 
many of the remaining old ones and introduced a new era. Tlius 
through many rolling ages has the earth been changed. The 
last great catastrophe it experienced was the deluge recorded by 
IMoscs in the scriptures. 
But these statements and remarks relate to the south-eastern 
part of the island of Great Britain. A question arises respecting 
the amount of agreement and correspondence that has been al¬ 
ready observed, or which we may hereafter expect to discover, 
between the secondary strata of England and those of other coun¬ 
tries. Shall we find elsewhere the same number of formations 
succeeding each other in the same order ? If the views now gen¬ 
erally entertained by geologists respecting the original condition 
of the globe, and the present temperature of its interior parts, shall 
be deemed worthy of adojition, it will follow that the state ofits 
exterior surface, and ils relations to animal and vegetable li.^e 
whilst the strata in question were in the act of being formed, 
must have depended in a considerable degree upon its tempera¬ 
ture simply, and as this must have been nearly the same in every 
part, a general correspondence, and especially an agreement in 
regard to the remains they hold imbedded, may be expected, be¬ 
tween the strata of parts of the globe remote from each other, and the 
formations of any one country, may be regarded as furnishing 
a general type of those of any other country. The resemblance is 
found however, in fact, to be partial and imperfect. The composition 
and structure of a stratum remaining unchanged, the remains imbed- 
ed in its remote parts are not exactly the same. More frequent¬ 
ly, the organic remains being constant, the stratum or including 
rock will vary. A formation occupying a large space in one 
part of the globe, will be wanting, or its place supplied by a to¬ 
tally different, or as it is commonly called, equivalent formation 
