ns the changes that have taken place on the
earth's surface have been effected, and can only reason on them from
analogy, it is to be feared we shall never arrive at any clear
demonstration of the truth of our surmises with regard to geographical
changes, whether extensive or local, since the causes which produced them
will necessarily have ceased to operate. We cannot refer to the dates when
they took place, as we may do in regard to the eruptions of a volcano,
or the appearance or disappearance of an island. Such events are of minor
importance. Those mighty changes to which I would be understood to allude,
can hardly be laid to the account of chemical agency. We can easily
comprehend how subterranean fires will occasionally burst forth, and can
thus satisfactorily account for earthquake or volcano; but it is not to
any clashing of properties, or to any visible causes, that the changes of
which I speak can be attributed. They appear rather as the consequences of
direct agency, of an invisible power, not as the occasional and fretful
workings of nature herself. The marks of that awful catastrophe which so
nearly extinguished the human race, are every day becoming more and more
visible as geological research proceeds. Thus, in the limestone caves at
Wellington Valley, the remains of fossils and exuviae, show that their
depths were penetrated by the same searching element that poured into the
caverns of Kirkdale and other places. They are as gleams of sunshine
falling upon the pages of that sublime and splendid volume, in which the
history of the deluge is alone to be found; as if the Almighty intended
that His word should stand single and unsupported before mankind: and when
we consider that such corroborative testimonies of his wrath, as those I
have noticed, were in all probability wholly unknown to those who wrote
that sacred book, the discovery of the remains of a past world, must
strike those under whose knowledge it may fall with the truth of that
awful event, which language has vainly endeavoured to describe and
painters to represent.

CHAPTER VIII.

Environs of the lake Alexandrina--Appointment of Capt. Barker to make a
further survey of the coast near Encounter Bay--Narrative of his
proceedings--Mount Lofty, Mount Barker, and beautiful country adjacent--
Australian salmon--Survey of the coast--Outlet of lake to the sea--
Circumstances that led to the slaughter of Capt. Barker by the natives--
His char