Principles of geology, Volume 4

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Page 349 - Crystalline forces have rearranged whole mountain masses of them, producing a beautiful crystalline cleavage, passing alike through all the strata. And again, through all this region, whatever be the contortions of the rocks, the planes of...
Page 384 - ... which is revealed to us by the microscope. We are prepared, therefore, to find that in time also, the confines of the universe lie beyond the reach of mortal ken. But in whatever direction we pursue our researches, whether in time or space, we discover everywhere the clear proofs of a Creative Intelligence, and of His foresight, wisdom, and power.
Page 366 - ... may be nothing more than micaceous and argillaceous sandstones altered by heat, and certainly, in their mode of stratification and lamination, they correspond most exactly. Granular quartz may have been derived from siliceous sandstone, compact quartz from the same. Clay-slate may be altered shale, and shale appears to be clay which has been subjected to great pressure.
Page 213 - For my own part, I have always considered the Flood, when its universality, in the strictest sense of the term, is insisted upon, as a preternatural event, far beyond the reach of philosophical inquiry, whether as to the causes employed to produce it, or the effects likely to result from it.
Page 31 - Each resembles a shingle beach, being formed entirely of loose materials, principally water-worn, rounded stones, from the size of a nut to that of a man's head. The stones are principally granite and gneiss, with masses of schistus, whinstone, and quartz mixed indiscriminately, and all bearing marks of having been worn by attrition under water *. The theory proposed by Captain Hall to explain these appearances is the same as that which had been adopted to account for the analogous parallel roads...
Page 385 - ... and habits of prior races of beings. The disposition of the seas, continents, and islands, and the climates, have varied; the species likewise have been changed; and yet they have all been so modelled, on types analogous to those of existing plants and...
Page 4 - Castrogiovanni, an elevation of about three thousand feet above the level of the sea...
Page 385 - To assume that the evidence of the beginning, or end, of so 68 Principles of Geology, vol. ii. p. 211. vast a scheme lies within the reach of our philosophical inquiries, or even of our speculations, appears to be inconsistent with a just estimate of the relations which subsist between the finite powers of man and the attributes of an infinite and eternal...
Page 205 - Clermont,) could hardly have failed to notice them. Had there been even any record of their existence in the time of Pliny or Sidonius Apollinaris, the one would scarcely have omitted to make mention of it in his Natural History, nor the other to introduce some allusion to it among his descriptions of this his native province.
Page 210 - Fleming, that in the narrative of Moses there are no terms employed that indicate the impetuous rushing of the waters, either as they rose or when they retreated, upon the restraining of the rain and the passing of a wind over the earth. On the contrary, the olive-branch, brought back by the dove, seems as clear an indication to us that the vegetation was not destroyed, as it was then to Noah that the dry land was about to appear.

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