not believe that in a cavity of such dimensions, or any other elastic body could have operated in manner as to throw out all, or the greatest part of

ents.

all we have adduced on this subject, we cannot lude, that the phenomena of earthquakes and volindicate the existence of an ocean of melted lava, ly existing at an unknown depth under the surface earth, and that these phenomena may, in most of rieties, be accounted for by such a hypothesis, and her which has yet been proposed. It is, therefore, le to infer that such a mass of igneous matter does exist.

EVATION OF CONTINENTS FROM THE SEA.

occurrence of sea shells, and the remains of marine at a distance from any existing ocean, is a fact of observation. Some of these remains are deeply. n solid strata, while others are found in alluvia - surface. We have noticed in the preliminary his work, that such remains excited the attention rliest geological observers, and that for want of a ilosophical mode of accounting for these phenoey were then considered, not real shells, but the of plastic nature.

eat proportion of Italy is covered by an alluvial taining sea shells, and occasionally the remains upeds, both of living and extinct species, such as nant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, mastodon, &c. In ntry, in the state of New-York, of Ohio, and inoughout the great valley of the Mississippi, fossil e found; and, as in Italy, there occurs also the of ancient quadrupeds.

heory, long since suggested, that the great lakes America, are the deeper beds of an inland sea, nce covered a great extent of land, a part of which dry, has undoubtedly many circumstances in its d indeed may be considered as a well founded al fact. In this instance, if, as some geologists this ancient sea has been drained by the bursting

en we suppose that the objects we are contemplaere once covered by water, we are strongly imwith the changes which the relative levels of the ad land must have undergone. And when we find ains of shell fish imbedded in these strata, we canate to admit that these rocks have once been covthe ocean. When, lastly, we observe that those ich must once have been horizontal, are now verat they are inclined, broken, bent, and dislocated nerable ways, we are forcibly led to conclude that esent distance from the sea has been accompanied nt alterations in the form of the surface, and that it 1 produced by the action of enormous powers.— och, vol. i. p. 86.

ing that these strata have once been under the which, from the circumstances, is proved beyond t or controversy, the question to be examined, is, the ocean has retired to a lower level, or whether -, by some enormous force, has not been elevated

e water.

henomena of shells in strata were once attributed Hosaic deluge, but we need not, at the present day, arguments to show the impossibility of such an ori50 days was too short a period to have produced

ects.

been ascertained that some of the Peruvian mounntain sea shells, at an elevation of fourteen thouabove the level of the sea, and that the nature of a in which they are contained, is such as to show se mountains must for a long period have been ed. Hence it is plain that no hypothesis connectthe deluge, can explain this fact.

if the sea has retired in a gradual manner from eight, within a period of five or six thousand years, ought now, at this rate of depression, to be at least usand feet lower than it was two thousand years facts, with respect to the Baltic and the Mediterraad to prove, that since the Christian era, the ocean changed its level, in any appreciable degree.

is, therefore, not the least probability, or even posthat marine organic remains situated above the mbedded in strata at a distance from it, can be ac

fox ho ang unanitio annnnoted with the depros

now we examine the facts and arguments tending to that the land has been thrown up from the bottom of sea, we shall find that the evidence amounts to little than absolute demonstration that this has been the

the first place, strata composed of fragments of rocks y considerable size will take the horizontal direction. true that deposites of fine matter, as clay, and sand, water, will at first take the impression, or form of the m when this is uneven, but if the strata be of any derable thickness, the layers will assume a horizonevel. But we shall find, on examination, that very stratified rocks in any part of the world, have pred their coincidence with the horizon. On the contraey are inclined at various angles, and are sometimes quite vertical; clearly evincing that they have been rbed, and dislocated by some violence, since their for

on.

f," says Dr. Macculloch, "the highly inclined posiof strata were not itself a proof of their elevation, evies of motion are found in a great number of phenomIn their curvatures we find proofs of disturbance; nd even more decided evidence to the same purpose eir fractures. But when we see that these fractures ccompanied by a separation of parts which were once nuous, that one portion of a stratum occupies a higher wer place than another, and that this separation is oftended by a difference in the angle of inclination of the ated parts, we have every proof that can be desired, of ceration in the horizontal position of stratified rocks, the period when they were consolidated."-Geology, p. 88.

the kind of materials, of which many inclined strata omposed, we have additional evidence of their eleva

ofter solu such evide

tain

e have stated that depositions of sediment from water t first take the form of an uneven bottom; but we need top to prove, that fragments of rock of any conside size, will not rest on the sides of steep declivities, ill roll or slide down by their own gravity. Now, notorious," says Dr. Macculloch, "that the conglom=which form such conspicuous strata in many counand which prevail chiefly at the boundary which septhe strata called secondary, from the primary, are

often found in positions, not only highly inclined, but absolutely vertical. As the materials of these are often of such bulks as to weigh even many hundred pounds, it is evident, that the original position of the strata which contain them must have been horizontal."

It is well known also, that certain marine worms which live in sand, and inhabit straight tubular shells, invariably penetrate the sand in a vertical direction, whether the surFace be horizontal or not. If the strata remain undisturbed hese shells remain in the position seen at Fig. 12.

Fig. 12.

a

And it needs little reflection to see that a concave, or dish-formed shell, when it sinks in water, must reach the bottom with its convexity downwards, and hence in all recent formations, such shells are always found n this position. But in the inclined strata, of which we re speaking, such tubular shells are found making various ngles with the horizon, though they preserve their perpenicularity with respect to the strata as represented at b.

Fig. 13.

b

Fig. 13, while had the strata been pierced after its disturbance, it would have been in the direction of c. The concave shells, under like circumstances, are found to have changed their positions, their cavities being no longer upward, but inclined according to the posion of the strata. On the same subject Dr. Ure says, he erection of subaqueous strata into primitive mountains ad plains, was evidently accompanied with universal disption. Innumerable fragments of both the upborne, and bearing rocks, were tossed about and washed down into e congregated waters, along the precipitous shores, and er the beds of the primeval ocean. These shattered gments becoming agglutinated by their own pulverulent ment, soon recomposed continuous strata, which bear innal evidence of the violence which gave them birth. us were formed the transition rocks of geologists, minal masses which denote the passage between the upright mitive, and the horizontal secondary strata, between se of inorganic and organic evidence."

The convulsions which after a long interval caused the