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tion of trees at that epoch, seeing that none can now be found of an ante-Noahic age,-they can be traced up to that patriarch's time, and there they fail,-and we might assert this to be a strong argument against modern Geology.

But Mr. Lyell would lead us to form a different conclusion respecting the death of trees. He says that in the deepest parts of the lake Bistineau, in the Red River of Louisana, "are seen numerous cypress-trees of all sizes, now dead, and most of them with their tops broken off by the winds, yet standing erect under water. This tree resists the action of air and water longer than any other, and, if not submerged throughout the whole year, will retain life for an extraordinary period." So, in the Caraccas, in the year 1790, a large lake was formed by the sinking of a portion of the forest of Aripao; the water being eighty or one hundred feet in depth, yet "the trees remained green for several months under water." Dr. Smith ought, therefore, first to have made the experiment, before he affirmed that all the trees would perish during the seven or eight months that they were covered by the Noachian flood.

We fear that Moses is here again at issue with the geologist. For he tells us that a dove, being sent out of the ark by Noah, returned with an olive-leaf in her mouth; from which circumstance, the patriarch "knew that the waters were abated from off the earth." Hence it is morally certain that Noah did not suppose the trees to be dead; and we must imagine him to have known better than we can do at this great distance of time. Regarding the Bible as true, we positively affirm that all the trees were not destroyed during their inundation, and that Dr. Smith is here directly opposing the sacred historian.

Once more: he objects to the commonly-received notion of a universal deluge, from the difficulty of accommodating all the species of animals in the ark, and from the impossibility of their afterwards living in different climates. As the question of species will presently be discussed, we shall now pass it over with one remark,—that we cannot perceive so much dissimilarity between various kinds of lions, tigers, elephants, or crocodiles, as there is between a tall, fair, elegant, Arab lady, and the black, stunted, squatted, curly-haired Negress, whom her lord has captured from the other side of the Desert,-both of whom Dr. Smith acknowledges to be the descendants of Noah.

Geologists seem to imagine that we regard the brute creation, upon their disembarkation from the ark, immediately to have

bent their way to far-distant lands, subject to the greatest variation of heat and cold; instead of their gradually migrating from Asia Minor, and by degrees accommodating themselves to a difference of climate. Besides, we agree with them in supposing that the general temperature of the world was milder than it is at present; which hypothesis strips the subject of its chief difficulties; and we hope that our opponents will bear this in mind when they sympathize with the forlorn condition of the Noachian animals. We may be allowed to assure Dr. Pye Smith, that we should heartily join in his condolences with the patriarch and his family, concerning their perilous descent down the cliffs of Ararat, if the Bible had informed us of their being placed in so fearful a situation; but since it does not point out the particular hill upon which the ark rested, nor describe the mighty effects which volcanoes and earthquakes (to which that country has been very subject) may have since produced, we shall reserve our commiseration until we shall have been favoured with more certain information.

DEPOSITION OF STRATA.

THERE is nothing for which cosmogonists ask with more incessant importunity, than for a great quantity of time. If this requisite be granted, they can account for every thing; without it, they are perfectly helpless. Yet they widely differ as to the periods necessary for arranging the crust of the earth into its present form; some being content with a few myriads of years, others demanding many millions of ages. Though it is certain that the world has undergone mighty changes since its creation, we are ignorant of their extent, and of the power of those means by which they have been brought about; consequently, we cannot specify the lapse of time during which they have been effected. It has been well remarked that our highest mountains are quite insignificant, if compared with the mass of the planetary orb. Their height would not be represented by more than the thickness of paper on a terrestrial globe of ordinary dimensions: and, since the contents of our planet are hid from

observation, we can form no adequate conception of their influence upon its frangible surface.

The notion of our dwelling upon a fluid mass of burning matter, nearly eight thousand miles in circumference, is altogether preposterous. What would become of the scum of an eighteen-inch caldron, at a temperature sufficient to dissolve silex? Would it cool? Allowing the superficial strata to be thirty miles in thickness, this is only a two hundred and sixtysixth part of the earth's bulk; would Dr. Pye Smith wish to live with Dr. Mantell and Mr. Babbage on a silex-furnace, two hundred and sixty-six inches in diameter, having the privilege of first throwing an inch-coating of stone over the incandescent fluid? We should think a foot-wall to be a very slight protection from a glowing mass of rock, eighty-eight feet in size; and should prefer dwelling at a considerable distance from so dangerous an object,-feeling assured that on the top of its thin covering, (supposing it not to be dissolved,) there would be little chance of our organic remains being preserved for the inspection of posterity. Wise men sometimes make egregious blunders when they begin to speculate upon subjects of which they literally know nothing. Yet it is by such absurd theories that geologists attempt to explain the order of the earth's strata, and the destruction of fossil remains from the primary rocks.

Leaving the centre of our planet, we would spend a short time upon its surface; premising that we are nearly as ignorant of its former condition, as we are of the interior structure. Authentic history conducts us back but a very few centuriesexcepting some little spots which were described by the Greek and Roman writers. But if we knew the exact topography of the whole world for the last two or three thousand years, we should still be in the dark as to its pristine changes. Recent alterations have been effected by floods, earthquakes, and volcanoes; whose intensity has varied during different ages, and in different situations: so that no argument can be rightly drawn from the present extent of these operations in any particular locality. Those countries which are now in the most peaceful condition, may once have been the subjects of awful convulsions, and that on a scale of magnitude of which we have no modern examples. Mr. Lyell has given us a graphic account of sundry movements that have been recorded during the last one hundred and forty years; and fearful indeed are the catastrophes which

he has described. If, then, we remember that the Mosaic creation took place six or eight thousand years ago, we may draw largely upon such a period for vast alterations in the world; nor shall we require an eternity to account for the present disturbed appearance of its minerals.

When Dr. Pye Smith visits a Silurian mountain, a few hundred feet high, he immediately looks backward to the revolution of "untold ages:" and when he perceives a deposit of shells upon an eminence, he imagines himself to be in a region which was modelled at an indefinite period of antiquity. A coal-field, originating from the debris of ancient forests, seems to the Doctor to have been the slow product of "countless centuries:" and even the London basin, with its variation of land and marine stratifications, reaches into the gloomy vista of immense "geological epochs."

All calculations respecting the rate of deposition of any order of rocks will appear futile, if we only suppose changes to have occurred in our island similar to those which have recently passed in distant countries. The more we become acquainted with geognostic facts, the more we shall feel ourselves inadequate to the task of accounting for those phenomena which have happened beyond the range of actual observation. From the appearance of certain rocks and organic remains in the geology of Great Britain, we have every reason to believe that this country was once the theatre of considerable volcanic and diluvial influences; in which case, those very phenomena which have struck geologists with the idea of a protracted series of operations, may have been caused in a brief space of time, without any violence being done to the analogy of nature. To illustrate this point, we shall give a few examples from modern history.

Limestone is formed in great abundance by a spring issuing from the hill of San Vignone, in Tuscany. "So rapid is the deposition near the source, that in the bottom of a conduit-pipe for carrying off the water to the baths, inclined at an angle of 30°, half a foot of solid travertine is formed every year. A more compact rock is produced where the water flows slowly. It is generally white: some parts of it are compact, and ring to the hammer; others are cellular, and with such cavities as are seen in the carious part of bone or the silicious meulière of the Paris basin. Sometimes the travertine assumes the botroidal and mammillary forms, common to similar deposits in Auvergne,

and, like them, it often scales off in thin, slightly-indulating layers." One of the branches of this stone" descends to the west, for two hundred and fifty feet in length, of varying thickness; but sometimes two hundred feet deep." Another spring, the San Philippo, at a few miles' distance from the former, furnishes a foot of hard stone in four months, and exhibits a circumjacent mass on the declivity of the hill, one mile and a quarter in length, and two hundred and fifty feet in thickness. "But what renders this recent calcareo-magnesian limestone of peculiar interest to the geologist is, the spheroidal forms which it assumes; offering so striking an analogy, on the one hand, to the concentric structure displayed in the calcareous travertine of the cascade of Tivoli; and, on the other, to the spheroidal forms of the English magnesian limestone of Sunderland. Between this latter and many of the appearances exhibited at San Philippo, and several other recent deposits of the same kind in Italy, there is every feature of resemblance; the same combination of concentric and radiated structure, with small undulations in each concentric ring, occasional interferences of one circle with another, and a small globular structure subordinate to the large spheroidal, with frequent examples of laminæ passing off from the external coating of a spheroid into layers parallel to the general plain of stratification." Sir H. Davy informs us, that he fixed a stick on a piece of travertine in the water of Solfatura; and in eleven months it was cased with a mass of hard stone, several inches in thickness.

A few simple facts like the above set at nought all the speculations of man as to the origin of calcareous rocks, the formation of which has not been recorded. On this scale of progression, a bed of one thousand feet might be constructed in two hundred and fifty years; and, being afterwards upraised by a volcano, might produce a vast mountain, covered with verdure and young trees, in the space of three centuries! We remember also, that the principal organic remains have been found in such formations-in limestone, limestone-caves, marl, gypsum; or else in the sand and clay of wooded rivers. Nor must we forget that there are springs holding silex and other mineral substances in solution; which may once have been as abundant in their deposits as the present calcareous waters of Italy. On this principle, Dr. Smith's Silurian mountains need excite no wonder, as they would require but a very short time for their developement.

Coal is supposed to have been formed out of the debris of

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