Theory of the Earth

FARTHER INDUCTION OF FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS, RESPECTING THE GEOLOGICAL PART OF THE THEORY.

By the present theory, the earth on which we dwell is represented as having been formed originally in horizontal strata at the bottom of the ocean; hence it should appear, that the land, in having been raised from the sea, and thus placed upon a higher level, had been of a different shape and condition from that in which we find it at the present time. This is a proposition now to be considered.

In whatever order and disposition the hard and solid parts of the land were at the time of its emerging from the surface of the sea, no provision would have then been made for conducting the rivers of the earth; therefore, the water from the heavens, moving from the summits of the land to the shores, must have formed for themselves those beds or channels in which the rivers run at present; beds which have successively changed their places over immense extents of plains that have often been both destroyed and formed again; and beds which run between the skirts of hills that have correspondent angles, for no other reason but because the river has hollowed out its way between them.