in comparison with the globe, and as little likely to have had any effect, as the boiling of tea-kettle would be to raise the temperature of the ocean.

The difficulty will not be removed or diminished by supposing that the more than tropical warmth of the high northern latitudes. was owing to the internal heat of those regions. For if a sufficient degree of internal heat existed only up to the commencement of the tertiary series, that is, to within some six or eight hundred feet of the upper surface of that series, how can it be conceived that the fossil remains four or five or more miles lower down, should not have been obliterated by its intensity? And if changes in the geographical distribution of land and water, or any other changes during the tertiary formations had the effect to lower the temperature where they took place, how should it happen that those primitive regions which were never covered by any sedimentary deposits, and those stratified regions in which the tertiary group is wanting, should have wholly lost the benefit of the previously superabundant heat from

below, and become even colder than the highest tertiary strata? Are not the former nearor to the igneous gulf than the latter? Did the tertiary formations interpose no hinderance to the upward tendency of the heat? Was the heat such as to penetrate the crystalline foundation, and the masses of transition and secondary rocks, causing a high temperature at the surface and in the air; and did such intense heat continue to ascend during fourfifths or more of the periods occupied by the entire process of stratification, and yet subside, become imperceptible, and give place to extreme cold, on those surfaces which were never covered by sediment, as soon as on those which were so covered? And if the ascending heat was so intense during these countless ages, as to extend its influence through the sedimentary masses, why should not the seas from their lowest depths to the surface have been in a boiling state? And why, if the internal heat continues, should they not, at the present time, grow warmer as you descend, and be at certain levels in a state of ebullition, and at the lowest points in a state of incandecent heat?

CHAPTER VI.

The gradual formation of the stratified masses, is inferred from their magnitude. The geologist standing on the platform of granite in front of a cross section of these masses, rising perpendicularly before him, to the height of five or ten miles, is overwhelmed by the vastness of the object. Under the influence of his physical studies and associations, he contemplates it as the result of ordinary natural causes. As he explores the several strata with their imbedded fossils, he is relieved by adopting the grand idea of their antiquity and mode of formation. He becomes fascinated, and finds it exhilarating and delightful to conceive and talk of operations carried on through interminable periods. He proceeds to classify them, distributes them into groups and periods, and thus builds up a scaffolding to sustain the frame work of his system. At length he becomes assured and confident. He takes the geological world as his own peculiar domain, and feels associated and familiarized with it. The remotest con

ceivable epochs seem to disclose to him their history in legible characters, for the right interpretation of which they furnish him the proper clue. In the light of this novel and sublime history, the prevalent opinions derived from the cosmogony of Scripture, appear to him to be puerile and absurd. A world not more than six thousand years old seems scarcely entitled to anything better than contempt.

Now the geologist does not and cannot possibly know what condition the materials of the sedimentary rocks were in, prior to the process of stratification. If that process commenced after the fall of man, and if those materials existed in such a state as to be rapidly moved by the causes which were brought to act upon them, then the formation of the strata would not require a prolonged period. If at the creation those materials were so combined and disposed as to provide spontaneously for the growth and support of the greatest possible exuberance of plants and animals; if, peradventure, the waters when first gathered into seas occupied no more than

one-third or one-fourth part of the surface of the globe, instead of two-thirds as at present; if the prolific soil of the remainder was during the first centuries stocked with all the variety of plants and animals, and the seas with the teeming myriads of which the fossil remains give note; if, in consequence of the apostacy, it was requisite that a new and far different combination and arrangement of those materials should take place, by which the soil should become comparatively sterile, and spontaneously productive rather of noxious than of useful plants, rendering labour, art, and the use of metals necessary on the part of man, and forbidding the continued existence of the plants and animals which have become extinct if such were the course of of things, which the Scriptures more than permit, then may we conclude that causes adequate to the effects produced, and to the rapid accomplishment of the changes, were brought into operation.

Without proposing or intending any formal theory of second causes or modes of operation, it may be proper to say that such a