Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/47

 Rh sand and gravel, would for ever have remained beneath the surface of the water, had not other forces been subsequently employed to raise them into dry land: these forces appear to have been the same expansive powers of heat and vapour which, having caused the elevation of the first raised portions of the fundamental crystalline rocks, continued their energies through all succeeding geological epochs, and still exert them in producing the phenomena of active volcanos; phenomena incomparably the most violent that now appear upon the surface of our planet.

The evidence of design in the employment of forces, which have thus effected a grand general purpose, viz. that of forming dry land, by elevating strata from beneath the waters in which they were deposited, stands independent of the truth or error of contending theories, respecting the origin of that most ancient class of stratified rocks, which are destitute of organic remains (see Pl. 1.—section 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). It is immaterial to the present question, whether they were formed (according to the theory of Hutton) from the detritus of the earlier granitic rocks, spread forth by water into beds of clay and sand; and subsequently modified