that distinction of dry land and sea, which fitted its surface to become the dwelling-place of organized beings. There seems nothing hypothetical in these propositions. The circumfluence of the shoreless abyss, proves the spheroidal form of the primordial ball which it concealed; the actual figure of the globe exhibits the manner of deviation from that form which took place when the land and seas were divided; and the position and nature of the mineral masses, show how that deviation and division were accomplished.

BOOK II. THE ANTEDILUVIAN PERIOD.

SECONDARY FORMATIONS.

CHAP. I.-GENERAL VIEW OF SECONDARY ROCKS.

IN BOOK FIRST we have seen the dry land upheaved out of the circumfluent waters, clothed with vegetation, and stocked with animal life. The primordial mineral strata which we afterwards considered, are void of organic forms. Those which we now proceed to examine, present distinct remains, more or less abundant, of living beings. Here, therefore, we should pause in solemn meditation, on the most marvellous phenomenon, which Nature, full of wonders, can possibly exhibit to the eye of man; the dawn of organization; the mystical transition from the blank of eternity to the fulness of time, from the inertia of the first matter, to the self-movement of life; the first-born of earthly creatures; records of the CREATIVE SPIRIT, traced in imperishable characters, which every peasant may read, and no sophist can falsify. Here the rudiments of vitality lie embalmed in enduring mausoleums. An ancient catastrophe has rendered these primeval vaults accessible, enabling us to behold the eldest progeny of nature, which display even in their exuviæ, the perfect workmanship of the DEITY. The infinite void that separates death from life,

yawns before us, the inscrutable pathway between nonentity and existence, which an Almighty Being alone could

N

traverse. Thus, even these elemental organic forms, are infallible documents of that ETERNAL WISDOM, which willed a world into being.

The erection of the subaqueous strata, into the primitive mountains and plains, was evidently accompanied with universal disruption. Innumerable fragments of both the upborne and upbearing rocks, were tossed about, and washed down into the congregated waters, along the precipitous shores, and over the bed of the primeval ocean. These shattered fragments becoming agglutinated by their own pulverulent cement, soon recomposed continuous strata, which bear internal evidence of the violence that gave them birth. Thus were formed the transition rocks of Geologists, mineral masses which denote the passage between the upright primitive, and the horizontal secondary strata, between those of inorganic and organic evidence. These rocks are called conglomerate, or fragmentary, from their aspect and composition. In the course of the consolidation and re-union of their parts, a few of the organic forms with which the sea was beginning to teem, falling into their crevices, became imbedded in their substance. Hence we see how some vestiges of animal existence, appear in the oldest conglomerate, or greywacke formation. The convulsions, which after a long interval, caused the deluge, have also dislocated many of these conglomerates, so that strata of rounded pebbles assuredly aggregated in a horizontal position, are now found standing in upright walls. Thus the famous puddingstones of Valorsine, in Savoy, are a kind of greywacke schist, containing rounded fragments of

TABULAR VIEW OF MINERAL STRATA. 131

gneiss, and mica-slate, 6 or 7 inches in diameter. That stones of the size of a man's head, previously rounded by attrition, should build themselves up in a perpendicular wall, and stand steadily thus, till fine particles of hydraulic cement, should have time to envelop and fix them in their upright posture, is an absurd and impossible supposition. It is therefore demonstrable that these puddingstone strata were formed in horizontal, or slightly inclined beds, and erected after their accretion. Such effects would be produced on the convulsive emergence of the pebbly banks out of the primeval ocean, either at the deluge, or some preceding catastrophe. There are mountains 10,000 feet high in the Alps, formed of firmly conglomerated pebbles.

It will be proper to introduce here, a general view of the order in which the mineral strata were progressively built up during the antediluvian period under that ocean; "whose bed laid dry by the last great revolution, now forms all the countries at present inhabited."*

TABULAR VIEW OF MINERAL STRATA.

The granites, porphyries, sienites, hornblende, and hypersthene rocks, with greenstones, and basalts, being unstratified erupted rocks, occur in many different and irregular positions among the successive strata.

Cuvier.-Ossemens Fossiles.-Discours Preliminaire, p. 135.