Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 4.djvu/365

 stood at a considerable height above the present level of Loch Spey, the seat of the supposed elevation. Yet the first line is found within a few hundred yards from this spot, and at an elevation so little above it that it must necessarily have been buried far under the imagined wave; which could not produce this effect on a surface immersed deeply under it, since the universal pressure of the fluid would produce an equilibrium of actions: nay the very hypothesis supposes them to have been formed by the deposit of loose matters at the surface of a fluid in motion. If the assumed causes which this hypothesis requires are, even with all the simplification and assistance which can be given to them, scarcely reconcilable to the appearances of the country and the ordinary course of Nature, the difficulties become insurmountable when we recollect that it is requisite to adopt a series of such causes; a succession of three similar elevations at given distances of time, producing similar and equal effects under an inequality of circumstances so obvious as scarcely to require mention to those who have reflected on the appearances described in the first part of this paper. Although a more general and distant origin for the supposed diluvian wave should be assumed, the hypothesis is still subject to the difficulties now enumerated; since the obstruction to its course, formed by the elevated ground which confines Loch Spey, would equally prevent it from exerting the requisite actions on the parts beyond that obstacle. It may appear unnecessary to adduce further arguments against this hypothesis, but as one of the objects of this paper is to point out the circumstances applicable to other enquiries of this nature, should such occur hereafter, it will not be useless to enumerate the remainder. Different cases may require different modes of investigation, and that argument which is sufficient for the present may not be universally applicable, as the peculiar objection here examined