Читать книгу Essay on the Theory of the Earth онлайн

11 страница из 122

Thus the sea, previous to the deposition of the horizontal strata, had formed others, which, by the operation of problematical causes, were broken, raised, and overturned in a thousand ways; and, as several of those inclined strata which it had formed at more remote periods, rise higher than the horizontal strata which have succeeded them, and which surround them, the causes by which the inclination of these beds was effected, had also made them project above the level of the sea, and formed islands of them, or at least shoals and inequalities; and this must have happened, whether they had been raised by one extremity, or whether the depression of the opposite extremity had made the waters subside. This is the second result, not less clear, nor less satisfactorily demonstrated, than the first, to every one who will take the trouble of examining the monuments on which it is established.

Proofs that such revolutions have been numerous.

ssss1

But it is not to this subversion of the ancient strata, nor to this retreat of the sea after the formation of the new strata, that the revolutions and changes which have given rise to the present state of the Earth are limited.

Правообладателям