Page:A Treatise on Geology, volume 1.djvu/46

 30 of older date; who, that looks upon the laws of modern nature, as affording proof of the being and attributes of God, will take a different view of the similar phenomena of ancient date, and thus virtually derogate from the respect due to the Lawgiver, by limiting the duration, and questioning the application of the law?

For it cannot be denied, that the appearances in the rocks which compose the crust of the globe, are such as to indicate most clearly that all their ingredients have existed in some other and earlier condition. The pebbles and fragments of stone imbedded in rocks of different nature are such as might be produced by previous mechanical action; crystals such as those imbedded in others are known to be effects of chemical forces; shells, plants, &c. retaining all their delicate external forms, and even their internal structure, can they be supposed to be mere lusus naturæ, or created to deceive mankind? Which is the more reasonable, to receive as truth the obvious indication of the senses, to acknowledge these effects to have happened through proximate causes, or to attribute to the Divine Wisdom the instantaneous creation of effects which, by their very nature and the nature of man, must inevitably mislead right reasoning to a wrong conclusion? It must, therefore, be allowed that the causes which the effects indicate, when rightly interpreted, are to be admitted as true; if the effects are rightly noted, and correctly interpreted, all the inferences of geology, however remarkable they may be, whatever agencies, conditions, or durations they assign to the composition of the crust of the earth, must be received as natural truths.

We may now follow the inquiry into the prior conditions of the materials consolidated in the crust of the earth. It is quickly seen that many considerable rocks are composed of parts which were suspended in water, as clays, sands, &c. and deposited from it as sediment; others are such as may be formed from solution in water; others resemble the products of