elevation of tracts of coast and of sea-bottom by the action of earthquakes. And what is more important, abundant evidence has been obtained, in the course of recent geological investigations, that upheavals and subsidences, too regular or extensive to have been. caused by earthquakes, have been occasional or epochal in some of the great coasts of the world, and that slow, constant, and not very small ones are now going on in regions which are not known to have ever once been affected by any kind of volcanic agency since the dawn of record. For example, raised sea-beaches, containing the shells of existing species of sea-molluscs, occur at elevations of from twenty to two hundred feet above the present level of high water—and sometimes in successions, as if raised at different epochs-on the coasts of Britain, Continental Europe, Southern Africa, and the West Indies; and indications are traceable, in the relations of landmarks to marine deposits, that a vertical oscillation is going on upward in the north, downward in the south, at the rate in some places of about four feet in a century, throughout at least one thousand miles of the coast of Scandinavia. In fact, strong presumption, or, in some parts, absolute certainty, is afforded by the full detail of geological discovery, that elevation and subsidence have been an ordinary character in the world's physical progress,— that all the matter of the present dry land lay originally under water,-that great tracts of rock-formation were alternately and repeatedly sea-bottom and dry land, that all the stratified pavement of the earth, notwithstanding that much of it is now the floor of plains and the material of mountains, was slowly formed under water, that the sea and the land have

ever been encroaching on each other as we see them doing at the present day, and that what is now landhemisphere was once water-hemisphere, and what is now water-hemisphere was once land-hemisphere.

The configuration of the bottom of the present seas and oceans, therefore, is probably not much different from the configuration of the surface of the present islands and continents. The great sandbanks at a distance from land correspond to plateaus; the remote islands, to the tops of alpine mountains; and the extensive profounds, to the plains and valleys. But the ocean-basins, with some remarkable exceptions, are shallow for a certain distance from the shore, and then sink rapidly or suddenly to great depths, and thenceforth, so far as known, are very irregular. The mean depth of the oceans seems to be more than the mean elevation of the continents; and the mean depth of districts of ocean adjacent to high land is more than the mean depth of districts of ocean adjacent to low land. The deepest sounding ever found is sixteen thousand feet, in the Southern Atlantic, nearly in the parallel of the loftiest peaks of America; and a sounding of twenty-seven thousand six hundred feet was made, without finding bottom, west of St Helena.

Such is the ocean. But where shall we find words to describe by a single touch or two its origin, its vastness, its power, its wealth of living things, its everchangeful aspect and ever-changeless nature? We have ample choice among the great uninspired masters of song; for it has provoked almost every one of them to give it some flings of their highest power. But the best, or even all together, make feeble harmony with its tempest-music compared to the thunder-melodies

of the following strains:-"Who shut up the sea with doors when it brake forth as if it had issued out of the womb, when I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it, and brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be staid?" "The earth, O Lord, is full of thy riches; so is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts." "The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid; the depths also were troubled. Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known." "The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea than the mighty waves of the sea."

CHAPTER X.

ROCKS AND FOSSILS.

THE LAW OF DEVELOPMENT-THE GREAT AGE OF THE EARTH-THR MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION-THE SUCCESSIONS OF CHANGE IN THE EARTH'S FORMATION-CRYSTALLINE ROCKS-SEDIMENTARY ROCKS-EFFECTS OF DISTURBANCE IN THE EARTH'S CRUST-FOSSILIFEROUS ROCKS-CHARACTERISTIC ORGANIC REMAINS OF THE SILURIAN, OLD RED SANDSTONE, COAL, NEW RED SANDSTONE, LIAS, OOLITE, WEALDEN, CHALK, AND TERTIARY FORMATIONS-SERIES OF CREATIONS IN THE WORLD'S PROGRESS, AND THEIR PROSPECTIVE ADAPTATION TO THE PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES OF MAN.

DEVELOPMENT, in the sense of one thing producing another, of inferior things producing superior ones, of a whole system rising out of little or nothing, and acting as its own creator and sustainer, is an atheistical, unphilosophical, raving absurdity. But development, in the sense of expanding series of Divine operations, commencing in small and simple forms, and proceeding gradually on to great and complex ones, seems to be the very essence of all concrete truth. It occurs in the formation of every plant and of every plant-seed. It occurs in every process of reproduction, and in the growth of every animal. It occurs in the expansion of man's intellect, and in the progress of all human knowledge, whether in individuals or in societies. It occurred in the revelation of the Divine will to fallen man, and in the execution of the Divine method of

mercy for saving him; and it occurs still in all God's moral government over him, both in the processes within the soul, and in the scheme of things over the world. And it is proved by a thousand evidences in rocks and fossils to have occurred in the physical formation of the earth. But, in this last case, it proceeded slowly, and through a manifold series. Myriads upon myriads of years—periods of time far longer than any persons but practised inquirers can easily think credible-seem to have passed in fitting up the earth as a proper habitation for man; and several great cycles of both its mineral and its organic progress were completed while the fitting up was going on.

But how are we to reconcile the earth's great age with the account given of its formation in the first chapter of the Bible? A few intelligent Christians suppose that account to be a myth, having no historical character, but only propounding lessons in the enigmatical manner of a parable. A few suppose that the six "days" of the account are six epochs, and that, in some way or other, the several cycles of formation which geologists have discovered in the earth's crust may be reducible to a number and succession coincident with these epochs. Many suppose that all the periods of pre-adamite progress, however long and however many, are comprised in the opening statement, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," that a cataclasm, more or less extensive, transpired at the end of that progress and immediately before the creation of man, and is indicated in the statement, "And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep,”— and that a special Divine process restored part, or all,