226 SUMMARY OF FACTS PROVING AN UNIVERSAL DELUGE. 
demonstration, that there has been an universal inundation of the 
earth, though they have not yet shown by what physical cause it was 
produced: and I cannot better conclude this part of my subject 
than by extracting from my inaugural lecture, before alluded to, the 
following summary of the facts to which, in addition to those af¬ 
forded by the interior of caves and fissures, I now appeal. They are 
as follows: 
I. The general shape and position of hills and valleys; the 
former having their sides and surfaces universally modified by the 
action of violent waters, and presenting often the same alternation 
of salient and retiring angles that mark the course of a common 
river; and the latter, in those cases which are called valleys of 
denundation, being attended with such phenomena as show them to 
owe their existence entirely to excavation under the action of a flood 
of waters. 
II. The almost universal confluence and successive inosculations 
of minor valleys with each other, and final termination of them all in 
some main trunk which conducts their waters to the sea; and the rare 
interruption of their courses by transverse barriers producing lakes. 
III. The occurrence of detached insulated masses of horizontal 
strata, called outliers, at considerable distances from the beds of 
which they once evidently formed a continuous part, and from which 
they have been separated at a recent period by deep and precipitous 
valleys of denudation. 
IV. The immense deposits of gravel that occur occasionally on 
the summit and slopes of hills, and almost universally in valleys over 
