£06 
EARTH. 
which marine fnells .Ire imbedded; if fuch evidence can 
be refided, it is in vain to feek for greater.” 
In the eflay which the prefent paper is intended to 
illudrate, the author confidered it as an edablidted fad, 
that the emerfion of fome portion of land from the 
primaeval ocean occurred previoufly to the creation of 
fifhes. The circumdance on which he relied for the proof 
of this faft, and which accorded with the Mofaic account 
ot the fubjeCt, was, that “ no petrifactions were found 
imbedded and incorporated in mafles of Hone in fuch 
countries as were elevated. 8500 or 9000 feet above.the 
aCtual level of the fea ; for indancg, in the great Tarta¬ 
rian platform and the elevated regions of Siberia, though 
in all inferior regions of the fame extent fuch petrifac¬ 
tions were abundantly found, at lead: in limedones; but 
even in thele none were found in thofe elevated tracts, as 
was proved by the teftimonies of all the pbilofophic tra¬ 
vellers who have traverfed and examined them. To re¬ 
pel this proo! of the Mofaic account, it has been replied 
by the laborious, learned, and eloquent, writer of the 
Hijloire du Monde primitif, and others, that the keen airex- 
ifting in thefe elevated regions had long ago decompofed 
and confumed the (hells that might have been there de- 
politcd ; but as the Hones Hill remain, it is evident that 
the (hells incorporated in their interior mud alfo have re¬ 
mained, if any fuch were ever contained in them,” 
It is, however, a Hefted by Don Ulloa, in his Memoires 
Philofophiqves, and by Gcntil, in the Mem. Par. 1771, that 
fhells have been found in the Cordelieres at the height of 
13,869 Engliih feet above the level of the fea. That the 
heigh-t was fo great as is here Hated, the author attempts 
to difprove, by the evidence of other writers ; as well as 
from the probable inaccuracy of the barometers by which 
the former gentlemen made their calculation :—but, let 
the height be what it may, Mr. Kirwan adds, “ It is cer¬ 
tain that thefe fiiells were deposited there after the emer- 
fion of land from the primitive ocean, and confequently 
by a fubfequent deluge ; for Don Ulloa exprefsly tells 
us, that in the fame rocks in which thefe fir cl 1 s are found, 
petrified wood is alfo found, Mem. Philofophiques, p. 372, 
This wood mud have grown on dry land, and mud have 
been floated when the fir ells were depofited, (ince both 
are found in the fame rocks. It mud have been brought 
thither by a deluge, as no wood can at prefent grow there, 
as Don Ulloa alfo atteds. The (hells are for the mod 
part bivalves,.which geologidsallow to form petrifactions 
of the mod modern date.” 
It is a faCt in geology, edablifhed by numerous obfer- 
vations, that, in mountains which extend from north to 
fouth, the wedern flank is the deeped, and the eadern the 
gentled; and that, where they run ead and wed, the 
fouthern declivity is the deeped, and the northern the 
mod gentle. In this paper, the author brings forward 
the principal fads in (upport of that deduction ; and he 
conliders it as clearly proved “that mountains are not 
mere fortuitous eruptions, unconnected with tranfaCtions 
on the fiirface of the earth :” fince it has been uniformly 
found by Forder that “ the north and north-wed (ides 
are gently covered, and connected with fecondary drata, 
in which organic remains abound,” while the fouth and 
fouth-wed (ides are almod invariably deep. In order to 
account for this nearly univerfal allotment of unequal 
declivities to oppofite points, and for the greated being 
directed to the wed and fouth, and the gentled to the 
ead and north, Mr. Kirwan fuppofes, id. That all 
mountains were formed while covered with water. 2d. 
That the earth was univerfally covered with water at 
two different eras, that of the creation, and that of the 
Noachian deluge. 3d. That in the fird era we mud dif- 
tinguifh two different periods, that which preceded the 
appearance of dry land, and that which fucceeded the cre¬ 
ation of fifli, but before the fea had been reduced nearly 
to its prefent level ; during the former, the primaeval 
mountains were formed, and during the lad, molt of the 
fecondary mountains and drata were formed. 4th. That 
all mountains extend either from ead to wed, or from 
north to fouth, or in fome intermediate direction between 
thefe cardinal points; which need not be particularly 
mentioned here, as the fame fpecies of reafoning mud be 
applied to them, as to thofe to whofe afpeCt they ap¬ 
proach mpd. Thefe preliminary circumdunces being no¬ 
ticed, we are next to obferve, that during the fird era, 
this vad mafs of water moved in two general directions, 
at right angles with each other, the one from ead to wed, 
which needs not to be proved, being the courfe of tides 
which dill continue, but were in that ocean neceflarily 
dronger and higher than at prefent; the other from north 
to fouth, the water'tending to thofe vad abyffes then 
formed in the vicinity of the fouth pole. Before either 
motion could be propagated, a confiderable time mud 
have elapfed. 
Now the primaeval mountains formed at the commence, 
ment of the fird era, and before this double direction of 
the waters took place, mud have oppofed a confiderable 
obdacle to the motion of that fluid in the fenfe that 
eroded that of the direction of thefe mountains. Thus 
the mountains that dretch from north to fouth, mud 
have oppofed the motion of the waters from ead to wed: 
this oppofition, diminilhing the motion of that fluid, dif- 
pofed it to fuffer the earthy particles with which in thofe 
early periods it mud have been impregnated to crydallize, 
or be depolited on thefe eadern flanks, and particularly 
on thofe of the highefl mountains, for over the lower it 
could eafily pafs; thefe depofitions, being inceffantly re¬ 
peated at heights gradually diminithing as the level of 
the waters gradually lowered, mud have rendered the 
eadern declivities or defeents, gentle, gradual, and -mode¬ 
rate, while the wedern fides receiving no fuch acccfiions 
from depofitions mud have remained deep and craggy. 
Again, the primteval mountains that run from ead to 
wed, by oppofing a fimilar refidance to the courfe of the 
waters from north to fouth, mud have occafioned fimilar 
depofitions on the northern fides of thefe mountains 
againd which thefe waters impinged, and thus linoothed 
them. Where mountains interfeCl each other in an ob¬ 
lique direction, the north-ead fide of one range being 
contiguous to the fouth-wed flanks of another range, 
there the afflux of adventitious particles on the north-ead 
fide of the one, mud have frequently extended to the 
fouth-wed fide of the other, particularly if that afflux 
were drong and copious. 
It has of late been very much-the vogue, particularly 
among the French writers, to endeavour to carry up the 
antiquity of the earth far beyond that which our received 
chronology attributes to it. This fancy has been greatly 
flimulated by fome ancient monuments and inscriptions 
difeovered by the French during their late expedition in 
Egypt; particularly different figures of the zodiac, in one 
of which the foldice is indicated in Virgo; and another 
found in the great temple of Dendara, reprefents the fun 
in Leo, approaching Cancer. According to fuch con- 
druCtions of the zodiac, fay thefe philofophers, we mud 
go back from the prefent period 15,000 years; and even 
then we (hall only arrive at the time in which the figures 
of the zodiac were contrived: but the world may have 
undergone many previous revolutions. 
With all the iemblance of fagacity and truth which 
accompanies this mode of argument, nothing can be more 
unphilofophical than the inference. Is it not an admitted 
faCt, that one of the fird efforts of adronomers, after their 
fcience had attained a certain degree of perfection, was 
to draw from it fuch modes of arrangement and calcula¬ 
tion as might be ufeful in adjuding the current time; and 
that the period from which they fuppofed their account to 
let out was in a great meafure arbitrary, depending on the 
multiplication of cycles into each other, counting back¬ 
ward from any pefition of the heavenly bodies in the then 
current age, to the period in which thefe bodies (accord¬ 
ing to their tables) mud have Hood in a pofition fitting 
the purpofe they had in view ? In proof of this, does 
not 
