still adhered, the animals inhabiting which, recently dead, were in a state of putrefaction. Finally the whole banks of the lake of Quintero, which communicates with the sea, had evidently mounted considerably above the level of the water, and in this locality the fact could not escape the least attentive ob

servers.

"At Valparaiso the country appeared to be raised about three feet, near Quintero about four. It has been pretended, that at a distance of a mile inland, the rise had been more than six feet; but I do not know the particulars of the measures that led to this last inference.

"In this case there was no volcanic eruption, no lava poured forth, no stones or ashes projected into the atmosphere, and unless it be maintained that the level of the ocean have fallen, it must be admitted that the earthquake of 19th November 1822, has raised the whole of Chili. Now the last consequence is inevitable, for a change of level in the ocean would have manifested itself equally along the whole extent of the coast of America, while nothing of the kind was observed in the ports of Peru, such as Paytu and Callao.

"If this discussion had not already carried us so far, the preceding observations, from which it results, that in a few hours, and by the effect of a few shocks of an earthquake, an immense extent of country rose above its former level, might have been compared with those which show, that there exists in Europe, a great country (Sweden and Norway) whose level is also rising, but in a gradual manner, and by a cause that acts unceasingly, but which cause is unknown."

Thus, then, to whatever portion of the earth's surface we turn our eyes, we find the proofs of igneous action; our existing volcanoes, protruding themselves through the newer stratified formations, and even the diluvium, being in some cases more recent in their origin than the last great catastrophe to which the earth has been subjected; those of more ancient date forcing their way through the upper and lower secondary and transition formations, which are also cut and intersected by dykes of trap, while granite from the size of mountain masses down to their veins, has upheaved and penetrated the oldest stratified rocks. We also find great extents of country rising, sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly, above their former level.

Mountains, then, are not the nucleus on which our continents and islands have been deposited, but are of subsequent origin, and have in their rise elevated the land to such a height as to be no longer accessible to the waters of the ocean. We may, even by examining through what strata the mountains have been raised, or those which compose their sides and crests when the elevating agent has not pierced through to the surface, infer the geological age which gave them birth. A research of this sort has been recently attempted and conducted with great ability by M. E. De Beaumont,

We shall quote an abstract of his reasoning from the "Annuaire," for 1830, in the words of Arago, which will also serve to illustrate various other points upon which we have touched.

"Among the formations of so many different kinds that form the crust of our globe, there is a class which has been called sedimentary (terrains de sediment). Those formations to which this name is properly applied, are composed wholly, or in part, of detritus, carried by water like the mud of our rivers, or the sands

of the beaches of the sea. These sands, in a state of greater or less division, and agglutinated by siliceous or calcareous cements, form the rocks called sandstones.

Certain calcareous formations may also be reckoned in the same class, even when they are wholly soluble, as is however rare, in nitric acid; for the fragments of shells which they contain, show, in another and perhaps better manner, that their formation has also taken place in the bosom of the waters.

"Sedimentary formations are always composed of successive layers, that are very distinctly marked. The more recent of them may be arranged into four great divisions, which, in the order of their antiquity, are

"The oolitic series or limestone of Jura;

"The system of greensand and chalk;

"The tertiary series; and finally

"The diluvian deposits.

"Although all these formations have been deposited by water, and although they may all be found in the same locality lying upon each other, the passage from the one to the other is never made by insensible gradations. A sudden and marked change is always to be perceived in the physical nature of the deposit, and in that of the organized beings whose remains are found in it. Thus it is evident, that between the epoch at which the limestone of Jura was deposited, and that of the precipitation of the system of greensand and chalk which covers it, there has been upon the surface of the globe a complete change in the state of things. The same may be said of the epoch that separates the precipitation of the chalk from that of the tertiary formations; as it is also evident that in every place the state or nature of the liquid, whence the earths were precipitated, must have changed completely between the time of the formation of the tertiary strata, and that of the diluvium.

"These considerable variations, sudden, and not gradual, in the nature of the successive deposits formed by the waters, are considered by geologists as the effects of what they call The Revolutions of the Globe.' And even although it is very difficult to say exactly in what these revolutions consisted, their occurrence is not the less certain on that account.

"I have spoken of the chronological order in which these different sedimentary strata have been deposited: I must therefore state that this order has been determined by following, without interruption, each different formation, to those regions in which it could be ascertained beyond question, and over a great horizontal space, that some particular layer was above some other. Natural excavations, such as the cliffs that border the sea, common wells, and Artesian fountains, with the excavation of canals, have furnished powerful aid in this inquiry. "I have already remarked, that all these sedimentary formations are stratified. In level countries, as might be expected, the disposition of the layers is nearly horizontal. In approaching mountainous countries, this horizontality, generally speaking, ceases; finally, on the sides of mountains, some of these layers are very much inclined; they even sometimes attain a vertical direction.

May not the inclined deposits that we see upon the slopes of mountains, have been deposited in inclined or vertical positions? Or is it not more natural to suppose, that they originally formed horizontal beds, like the contemporaneous beds of the same nature with which the plains are covered, and that they have been lifted up and assumed new directions at the moment of the elevation of the mountains on whose sides they rest?

"As a general principle, it does not appear impossible that the crests of mountains may have been incrusted in place, and in their actual position, by sedimentary deposits, since we daily see the vertical sides of vessels, in which waters charged with sulphate of lime evaporate, covered with a saline crust, whose thickness is continually augmented; but the question before us does not present this general aspect, for it is merely required to determine whether the known sedimentary formations can have been thus deposited. To this question we must reply in the negative, as can be shown by two species of considerations, wholly different from each other.

"Incontestable geological observations have shown, that the calcareous layers which constitute the summits of Buet in Savoy, and Mount Perden in the

Pyrenees, elevated 11,000 or 12,000 feet above the level of the sea, have been formed at the same time with the chalk of the cliffs that border the British channel. If the mass of water whence these strata were precipitated had risen 11,000 or 12,000 feet, the whole of France would have been covered, and analogous deposits must have existed upon all heights not exceeding 9,000 or 10,000 feet; now, it is found, on the contrary, that in the north of France, where these deposits appear to have undergone little change, the chalk never reaches a height of more than 600 feet above the level of the present sea. They present precisely the disposition of a deposit formed in a basin filled with a liquid whose level has never reached any points that are at the present day elevated more than 600 feet.

"I pass to the second proof, borrowed from Saussure, and which appears even more convincing.

"Sedimentary formations often contain pebbles rounded by attrition, and of a figure more or less elliptical. In the places where the stratification is horizontal, the longer axes of these pebbles are all horizontal, for the same reason that an egg cannot stand upon its point. But where the strata are inclined at an angle of 45°, the greater axes of many of these pebbles form this same angle with the horizon; and when the layers become vertical, the greater axes of many of the pebbles become vertical also.

"This observation, in respect to the position of the axes of the pebbles, demonstrates, that the sedimentary formations have not been deposited in the position they now occupy; they have been raised in a greater or less degree, when the mountains, whose sides they cover, have arisen from the bosom of the earth.

"This being proved, it is evident that these sedimentary formations, whose strata present themselves upon the slopes of mountains, in inclined or vertical directions, existed before these mountains arose. The formations of the same class that are prolonged horizontally, until they meet the same slopes, must be on the contrary of a date posterior to the formation of the mountain; for it cannot be conceived, that, in rising from the mass of the earth, it should not have elevated at the same time all previously existing strata.

"Let us introduce proper names into the general and simple theory which we have developed, and the discovery of M. de Beaumont will be announced. "Of the four species of sedimentary formations that we have distinguished, three, and these are the uppermost, the nearest to the surface of the globe, or the most modern, extend in horizontal layers, from the Cote d'Or and from Forez, to the mountains of Saxony; and only one, which is the oolite or limestone of Jura, shows itself elevated within this district.

"Therefore the Hartz, the Cote d'Or, and Mount Pilus of Forez, have risen from the globe since the formation of the Jura oolite, and before the deposit of the three other formations.

"On the slopes of the Pyrenees and Appennines, two of the formations are raised up, namely, the oolite and the greensand and chalk; the tertiary formations, and the diluvium that covers them, have preserved their primitive horizontality. The Pyrenees and Appennines are, therefore, more modern than the limestone of Jura, and the greensand which they have raised, and more ancient than the tertiary strata and the diluvium.

"The western Alps, and among them Mount Blanc, have, like the Pyrenees, raised the limestone of Jura, and the greensand, but, in addition, they have also raised the tertiary formations; the diluvium is alone horizontal in the vicinity of these mountains.

"The date of the elevation of Mount Blanc must, therefore, inevitably be placed between the epoch of the formation of the tertiary strata and the dilu

vium.

"Finally, upon the sides of the central Alps, (Mount St. Gothard,) and of the mountains of Ventorix and Liberon, near Avignon, no one of the sedimentary formations is horizontal; all the four have been raised up. When these mountains arose, the diluvium itself must have already been deposited.”

"The sedimentary formations appear, from their nature, and the regular disposition of their layers, to have been deposited in times of tranquillity. Each of these formations being characterized by a particular system of organized beings, both vegetable and animal, it is indispensable to suppose, that between the epochs of tranquillity, corresponding to the precipitation of two of these overlying formations, there must have been a great physical revolution upon the globe. We now know that these revolutions have consisted in, or at least been characterized by, the raising of a system of mountains. The two first liftingsup pointed out by M. de Beaumont, not being by any means the greatest of the four he has succeeded in classing, it will be seen that we cannot infer that the globe, in growing older, becomes less fit to experience this species of catastrophe, and that the present period of tranquillity may not be terminated like those that have preceded it, by the elevation of some immense mountain chain.”

M. de Beaumont next attempted, by a fancied arrangement of zones and parallels to great circles, to classify the mountains. he had not an opportunity of examining, with those in respect to which he had obtained the above satisfactory conclusions. fear, however, that he has proceeded to theorize too speedily, and before he had obtained a sufficient number of facts. We are certain, that in respect to the great Alleghany group of the United States, which he classes with the Pyrenees and Appennines, he must be mistaken, for no formations later than the transition limestone are to be found in their vicinity. In respect to the highlands of the state of New-York, and their branch of primitive rocks, which extends along the Hudson to the island of New-York, the sandstone of New-Jersey appears to continue horizontally until it reaches their bases, and no rocks appear to have been raised on the south-eastern side of the highlands, which are the easternmost of the five parallel ridges of the Alleghanies, older than the slate; but on their north-western side the transition limestone appears to have been raised. They therefore are older than any mountains examined by M. de Beaumont, and were we to hazard a conjecture, we should class them with the Grampians of Scotland, and the mountains of Wales, in both of which slate is the only rock of the transition series that appears to have been elevated.

To complete our subject, it would be necessary that we should enter into a discussion of the manner in which the ocean is now acting, by its currents and tides, to distribute and deposit in its bed the sediment which rivers and streams are constantly hurrying into it; and that we should form some estimate, from what occurs within our reach, of the effects produced in these deposits by the vast number of organized beings that must people them, the deposits of vegetable matter, and the exuviæ of animals. Such discussion would, however, be in a considerable degree purely conjectural, and we therefore shall not enter into it. It is sufficient to say, that formations analogous to those which the elevation of the continents has exposed to our view, must be now taking place in the bed of the ocean, whence they

may be in their turn raised, to task the ingenuity of future races of reasoning beings.

Inquiries into the history of the changes which our earth has undergone, as they lead with infallible evidence to the proof of an existence of this globe at a period almost infinitely more remote than that at which man became its inhabitant, have been stigmatized as impious. The intolerant theologian, adhering with pertinacity to his own system of interpretation, fulminates anathemas against all who find in natural appearances convincing evidence, that the earth was not suddenly and by a single fiat called into existence in the exact state in which we now find it. Timid geologists have bent to the storm, and have endeavoured to reconcile natural appearances with the arbitrary interpretations that have been deduced from scripture. But neither is the inquiry itself less holy than any of those which consider natural phenomena, exhibiting in their progress convincing proofs of infinite wisdom and power in the Creator, justifying the ways of God to man; nor is any one of the results of the inquiry in the slightest degree opposed to the texts of the sacred volume. The impiety rests with the interpreter, and not with the physical inquirer. The former unwisely links to his spiritual belief an interpretation at variance with natural appearances; and the latter, if he do not inquire for himself, and believe on the evidence of the former, that the truth or falsehood of the two distinct propositions are inseparably connected, must, as he sees the one to be inconsistent, hesitate with respect to the other. Some geologists, then, may have been sceptics; but could the secrets of the heart be laid open, we cannot help believing, that those who have most earnestly endeavoured to reconcile the phenonomena we know to exist, with the interpretation of scripture, from which they appear to vary, have been at bottom the least sincere in their religious faith.

For ourselves, we see no difficulties, no discrepancies between the record of direct revelation, and the sublime passages of the book of nature. We believe that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth;" that he called at once into existence the whole material world; but we also believe that he then impressed matter with laws, under the action of which that material world must maintain its existence, and secure its permanence, until the same almighty power shall annihilate it. We are not of those who judge of the works of the Deity from the conditions of the works which can alone be effected by the power of man. However perfect or complete be human mechanism, it can only move by the application of some power inherent in matter; did not an elastic spring expand itself after being coiled,