the surface of its waters is now higher than the roofs of the houses in Ferrara. At the same time, its alluvial depositions have advanced so rapidly into the sea, that, by comparing old charts with the present state, the shore is found to have gained more than six thousand fathoms since 1604, giving an average of a hundred and sixty or a hundred and eighty, and, in some places, two hundred feet yearly. The Adige and the Po are, at the present day, higher than the whole tract of land that lies between them; and it is only by opening new channels for them in the low grounds which they have formerly deposited, that the disasters which they now threaten may be averted.

"The same causes have produced the same effects along the branches of the Rhine and the Meuse; and thus the richest districts of Holland have continually the frightful view of their rivers held up by embankments, at a height of from twenty to thirty feet above the level of the land."

We have here a curious example of the kind and amount of detrition by which, in the course of years, the higher grounds are worn down to fill up valleys, and to extend into the sea, and facts of a similar kind are every where familiar to the geological inquirer.

Mr Fairholme, in his "Geology of Scripture," gives a striking account of the manner in which a fresh water lake has been encroached on by the land in the course of a century, which illustrates the same kind of natural action as that above mentioned, on which Cuvier founds his calculations, although, in the instance given, that action was assisted by the interference of art. Speaking of the Kander, a mountain torrent of no great size in the Canton of Berne, he says, that in consequence of the mischief done by the overflowing of that river, to a great extent of valuable meadow land, in its course to join the Arr, ten miles below the Thoun, which was its natural course, a spirited plan was, about the beginning of last century, proposed and adopted for cutting a sub

terraneous passage for the river through a ridge, at a place where it approached the lake. The descent was rapid, and the torrent in a few years enlarged its course, till at length the whole superstructure gave way and fell in. The effects of this soon became apparent in the lake. An immense quantity of gravel and stones was carried in by the current, and lodged in its bed; and by this means a new formation took place at the mouth of the river, which, in 1829, being little more than a century, had "produced a secondary bed of mixed materials, of fully three hundred acres, and at least one hundred feet in depth."*

This remarkable formation took place under peculiar circumstances; but all rivers are actively employed in effecting similar changes to an extent of which those who have not attended to the subject are little aware. Major Rennel and Major Colebrooke calculate that the waters of the Ganges contain, in the season of flood, one part in four of mud, on which Mr Lyell remarks, “ We are somewhat staggered by the results to which we must arrive, if we compare the proportion of mud as given by Rennel, with his computation of the quantity of water discharged, which latter is probably very correct. If it be true that the Ganges, in the flood season, contains one part in four of mud, we shall then be obliged to suppose that there passes down every four days a quantity of mud equal in volume to the water which is discharged in the course of twenty-four hours. If the mud be assumed to be equal to one-half the specific gravity of granite (it would, however, be more), the weight of matter daily carried down in the flood season would be about equal to seventy-four times the weight of the great pyramid of Egypt. Even if it could be proved that the turbid waters of the Ganges contain one part in a hundred of mud, which is possible, and which is affirmed to be the case in regard to the Rhine, we should be brought to the extraordinary conclusion; that there passes down, every

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day, into the Bay of Bengal, a mass, more than equal in weight and bulk to the great pyramid.",

I quote these examples to show that the process by which the earth encroaches on the sea, and becomes reduced in the elevation of its surface, is in many instances astonishingly rapid; but it is not in these extreme cases that Cuvier founds his calculation, but on an average of ordinary cases. He takes his observations partly from the Deltas of the Nile and the Rhone, and partly from the depositions along the shores of the sea of Asoph, and the Black Sea; and he also considers the growth of peat mosses, the extent of mountain slips, and the progress of downs; and, by collating the results of these diversified operations, he finds them, as I have already intimated, all concurring in one conclusion, which serves by a new test to verify the Scriptural account of the era of the deluge, and its universal operation.

But it may be more satisfactory to give the words of Baron Cuvier himself:-" Thus, while the traditions of all nations have preserved the remembrance of a great catastrophe, the deluge, which changed the earth's surface, and destroyed nearly the whole of the human species, geology apprises us, that, of the various revolutions which have agitated our globe, the last evidently corresponds to the period which is assigned to the deluge. We say, that by means of geological considerations alone, it is possible to determine the date of this great event with some degree of precision.

"There are certain formations, which must have commenced immediately after the last catastrophe, and which from that period, have been continued up to the present day, with great regularity. Such are the deposits of detritus observed at the mouths of rivers, the masses of rubbish which exist at the foot of mountains, and are formed of the fragments that fall from their summits and sides. These deposits receive an yearly increase, which it is possible to measure. Nothing, therefore, is more easy than to calculate the time which it has taken

them to acquire their present dimensions. This calculation has been made with reference to the debris of mountains; and, in all cases, has indicated a period of about four thousand years. The same result has been obtained from the other alluvial deposits. In short, whatever has been the natural phenomenon that has been interrogated, it has always been found to give evidence in accordance with that of tradition. The traditions themselves exhibit the most astonishing conformity. The Hebrew text of Genesis places the deluge in the year 2349 before Christ. The Indians make the fourth age of the world, that in which we now live, to commence in the year 3012. The Chinese place it about the year 2384. Confucius, in fact, represents the first king Yeo, as occupied in drawing off the waters of the ocean, which had risen to the tops of the mountains, and in repairing the damage which they had occasioned."

This result, so pleasing to the religious mind, has been attempted to be evaded by some ingenious writers, who, with considerable plausibility, have supported views altogether at variance with revelation, endeavouring to account for all the changes which have taken place both in the animate and inanimate creation, by a regular and uninterrupted succession of natural causes, continued for a vast but undefined period, amounting perhaps to millions of years; but with whatever ability these views have been supported, the straining of facts to which such writers are obliged to resort for the purpose of supporting a very untenable theory, is too apparent not to display the weakness of their cause. It is impossible, by any ingenuity, to mystify the fact that "mountains decay with years,” and that there is a general tendency in nature to reduce all things to a level; which, in a period infinitely short of eternity, would reduce the sea to a muddy puddle, and the land to a swampy and pestilential marsh.

VII. GEOLOGY.-EFFECTS OF THE DELUGE ON THE PRESENT SURFACE OF THE EARTH.

THE geological marks of a universal deluge are very clearly indicated, not merely by the facts we have been already considering, but also by appearances of a different kind. Marine shells are every where found, even on the loftiest mountains. These give evidence, either that the ocean has shifted its bed, or that it has swept over the earth as Moses has described; or, what is perhaps most probable from other indications, that both of these causes have been combined. But there are proofs of the flood still more unequivocal. There are deposits every where, which geologists have justly considered diluvial, and which, from their position on elevated ground or gentle slopes, are easily distinguished from the accumulations of lakes and rivers. "In the whole course of my geological travels," says Dr Buckland, "from Cornwall to Caithness, from Calais to the Carpathians, in Ireland or in Italy, I have scarcely ever gone a mile, without finding a perpetual succession of deposits of gravel, sand, or loam, in situations which cannot be referred to the action of modern torrents, rivers, or lakes, or any other existing causes. And with respect to the still more striking diluvial phenomena of drifted masses of rocks, the greater part of the northern hemisphere, from Moscow to the Mississippi, is described by various geological travellers, as strewed, on its hills as well as valleys, with blocks of granite, and other rocks of enormous magnitude, which have been drifted (mostly in a direction from north to south), a distance, sometimes of many hundred miles, from their native beds, across mountains and valleys, lakes and seas, by force of water, which must have possessed a velocity to which nothing that