LOCAL OCCURRENCES IN NATURAL HISTORY. 
5 
of gravel. The ruins of the antediluvian cities, and the remains of their over¬ 
whelmed fabrics, or some memorial of the arts they practised, would have 
remained before us;—but, at all events, it must be remembered that the absence 
of any physical relics of an historical event, will by no means vitiate the truth 
of the fact—we believe in the former existence of great Nineveh though its 
actual site is uncertain ; nor do we the less believe that the patriarch Joseph 
once held the vice-regal authority in Egypt, because no traces of his name or 
habitation are now to be found there. 
“ According to chronology, nearly 5,000 years have elapsed since the subsidence 
of that deluge recorded by Moses. Now we must be satisfied that this country 
was previously to that event dry land , before we can with any propriety expect 
to behold traces before us of the Mosaic deluge; for if it were then the bed of the 
sea , it would be of course absurd to expect that a land flood should have left any 
permanent evidence of its power there .* Even if it was at that time, or a short 
time prior thereto, raised [above the waters, it is obvious that it must be very 
difficult, at this distant period, to distinguish between pebbles rolled on the shores 
of the ancient ocean, and any that might have been dislodged by violent but 
temporary aquatic force from any mountains, and then mixed up with the marine 
detritus previously deposited. This is instructively shown by Mr. Murchison 
in his recent work on the Silurian System , where he remarks, that c it is not 
always practicable to separate the more ancient or local drift from the more 
recent ;f and he instances the caution required in distinguishing local from far- 
transported detritus, by reference to the Quartz-pebbles and fossils of the 
carboniferous Limestone, now found in abundance on the Eastern side of 
Worcestershire, and which have not been drifted from any distance, but are 
merely the result of the disintegration of calcareous conglomerate beds in the 
New Red Sandstone, whose transport took place at the time those peculiar 
deposits were imbedded. 
“ If an extensive deluge were now to sweep over the Continent of Europe and 
its adjacent isles, and involve the cities of London and Paris in the same calamity, 
without any ultimate rise in the level of the ocean ; after the waters had retired, 
evidences of the wide-spread desolation would long appear in the remains of 
drowned cattle and men, and the overthrown structures, bridges, and columns 
that would lie dispersed through the desolated region for ages. But it is obvious, 
that if Europe were overwhelmed by an uprising of the bed of the Atlantic 
ocean, scarcely an evidence of the catastrophe would be visible to tell its dreary 
* Since the publication of Dr. Buckland’s Reliquiae Diluviance , a great change has taken place 
in the opinions of the majority of geologists; and hence the “ diluvium ” which was formerly 
considered as swept over pre-existing land , is now generally admitted to be submarine detritus, 
f Murchison’s Silurian System , Part i., p. 529. 
