"of the first examination, and of the most superficial observation1."

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Thus it is, that the mineral geology reports in answer to our first questions, respecting the fact of the sea having at some period occupied the present continents, and respecting the time of its departure from them; and we find, that, although it has' prosecuted the inquiry with considerable industry' and caution, and with no little jealousy of the Mosaic record, it is nevertheless constrained, by' the evidence of phenomena alone, to testify in confirmation of the conclusions which we have deduced from the statements of that record, in these' particulars. Upon the indications of those phenomena, it founds its general class of secondary, or sedimentary formations.

We shall, therefore, be anxious to ascend higher, and to inquire, in the next place; Whether we can find monuments equally evident of that great PRIMEVAL CONVULSION, which, according to our induction from the record, must have attended the formation of the FRAGMENTARY BED or BASIN of the departed sea, now converted into this habitable

same in the northern seas; but are produced only in abysses (dans les "abymes), because their existence seems to demand the pressure of a vast "mass of water." (Observ. sur les Montagnes, &c. p. 33 and note.)› "As we still remain ignorant (says Cuvier) of the greater part of the "testaceous animals and fishes which live in the extensive deeps of the "ocean, it is impossible to know, with any certainty, whether a species "found in a fossil state may not still exist somewhere alive." (Theory, § 24.)

earth; in which CONVULSION, that bed or basin was violently deepened, to receive the congregated waters, by means of a vast disruption and depression of the solid frame-work and superior materials of one portion of the subaqueous globe? If that bed was really formed by a processo extensively destructive, and if we actually occupy that bed, we must, in all necessity, find abundant monuments of" wreck and ruin," the natural consequences of that violence and that destruction.

In this inquiry, the mineral geology, indeed, anticipates our question, by exclaiming: "Are "not all those pointed pyramids which detach

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themselves, as it were, from the bodies of the mountains, and shoot up into the air; all those "bare needles which rise like pinnacles from the Alps, eloquent witnesses of the destruction of the soils which once encompassed them, and of which they formed a part? - All the projecting points of rocks which jut out of mountainous masses, are of a similar character, and prove the destruc"tion of the surrounding soils."-"However "strong a partisan I am of crystallisation, (said

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Saussure,) it seems to me impossible to believe, "that such obelisks were originally so formed by the "hand of nature: all the substance which they now want, has been broken off and swept away; for, we can discern nothing around them, but other summits, whose bases are equally rooted in the soil,

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VOL. II.

1 D'AUBUISSON, tom. i. p. 227, 8.

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"and whose sides, equally fractured, indicate immense ruins1." The numerous blocks of rock "which are frequently found in certain soils, especially those of granite, and which are "shewn, by every indication, to be lying near "the places where they were first broken; are

a manifest effect, and therefore proof, of the depression of the soil.-The consideration of insu"lated mountains, often offers to the geologist "many subjects for meditation upon the revolu

tions which our globe has undergone, and upon the very considerable depression of its soils".". "Some geologists have thought, that the intermicdiary or transition (fragmentary) class of soils, might be suppressed, but I am very far from "agreeing with them: the idea of Werner, in establishing it, was very happy; for, it leaves in all their purity, if I may so speak, the two "other classes, of crystalline and sedimentary "formations. It relates to an EPOCHA, when the "MIXTURE of those two kinds of formations began "to be produced; and when a REVOLUTION took place in nature, which, from the numerous indi"cations that we witness, is, perhaps, the MOST " VIOLENT of all those which occurred during the formation of the mineral shell of the globe."

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Thus far, the independence of the mineral geology concurs to substantiate evidences, also,

1 Voyages dans les Alpes, § 2244. tom. iv. p. 414.

'D'AUBUISSON, tom. i. p. 230.

3 Ib. tom. ii. p. 199.

of that primeval convulsion, that first "most violent "revolution," which we have deduced from the record; upon the ground of which evidences, that geology founds its general class of fragmentary or transition formations, intermediary between the sedimentary, or secondary, above, and the crystalline siliceous, or primitive, beneath.

But, what agencies are there which, by the laws of nature, that is, of the creation, have principal power to produce the effect of ruin in the substance of the earth?

The most powerful agencies, as we have alalready seen, are unquestionably, volcano and earthquake. Let us then consider more particularly, the nature and operation of those two agents.

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Earthquakes," says the mineral geology, "are most frequent in the midst, or in the neigh"bourhood, of volcanos; so that there is an intimate "connexion between them, shewing them to be, in all

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probability, effects of the same cause; namely, "subterraneous fiery agents. The most common and best attested effects of earthquakes, are "cracks or crevices wrought in the mineral strata,

when they experience a great concussion."When the concussions are sufficiently violent to fracture the vaults beneath, either primordial

or formed by the conjunctions of the lavas, or to "burst the pillars by which they are sustained, "those mountains and soils fall back into the

gulf from which they had arisen. It was thus, "that, in the earthquake at Jamaica, in 1692,

"the highest mountain of the island was swal"lowed up, and was replaced by a lake: that, “in Iceland, a mountain of a considerable height was buried in one night by an earthquake, and "its place occupied by a very deep lake: that, upon the 11th of August, 1772, the largest "volcano of Java, the circuit of whose base was

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upwards of twenty miles, suddenly sunk, after a short and violent eruption, carrying down "with it forty villages, and two thousand in"habitants: that, in 1638, the volcano of the

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Peak, in the Molucca islands, which was visible "at sea at a distance of thirty miles, and which commonly served as a beacon or light-house, totally disappeared in the middle of a violent

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eruption; and its place is filled by a lake at "the present day. We are indebted to M. de "Humboldt for the knowledge of many facts of "the same nature: we have seen the Cargu

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airazo, in 1698, crumble away, and overwhelm "the neighbouring districts with its mud. And "ancient tradition relates, that the volcano of "the Altar de los Collanes, in Peru, the height of which, it is said, surpassed that of the Chimboraço, sunk down after eight years of con"tinual eruption; and its inclining eminences

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only exhibit, at the present day, traces of its destruction. In the soils occupied by extinct "volcanos, we still perceive indications of sinkings or depressions, particularly lakes, which are presumed to be the ancient sites of craters or

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