en broken and erected under the superincumbent horizontal
strata; or if, after the vertical strata had been broken and erected,
the horizontal strata had been deposited upon the vertical strata,
then forming the bottom of the sea. That strata, which are regular and
horizontal in one place, should be found bended, broken, or disordered
at another, is not uncommon; it is always found more or less in all our
horizontal strata. Now, to what length this disordering operation might
have been carried, among strata under others, without disturbing the
order and continuity of those above, may perhaps be difficult to
determine; but here, in this present case, is the greatest disturbance
of the under strata, and a very great regularity among those above. Here
at least is the most difficult case of this kind to conceive, if we are
to suppose that the upper strata had been deposited before those below
had been broken and erected.

Let us now suppose that the under strata had been disordered at the
bottom of the sea, before the superincumbent bodies were deposited; it
is not to be well conceived, that the vertical strata should in that
case appear to be cut off abruptly, and present their regular edges
immediately under the uniformly deposited substances above. But, in the
case now under consideration, there appears the most uniform section
of the vertical strata, their ends go up regularly to the horizontal
deposited bodies. Now, in whatever state the vertical strata had been in
at the time of this event, we can hardly suppose that they could have
been so perfectly cut off, without any relict being left to trace that
operation. It is much more probable to suppose, that the sea had washed
away the relics of the broken and disordered strata, before those that
are now superincumbent had been begun to be deposited. But we cannot
suppose two such contrary operations in the same place, as that of
carrying away the relics of those broken strata, and the depositing of
sand and subtile earth in such a regular order. We are therefore led
to conclude, that the bottom of the sea, or surface of those erected
strata, had been in very different situations at those two periods, when
the relics of the disordered strata had been carried away, and when the
new materials had been deposited.

If this shall be admitted as a just view of the subject, it will be fair
to suppose, that the disordered strata had been raised more or less
above the surface of