knowledge that Ireland had formerly been
in one mass of land with Britain, in like manner as the Orkneys had been
with Scotland[16].

[Footnote 16: I have the most satisfactory evidence of this fact, in
finding the schistus of Galloway and of England in the opposite coast of
Ireland, corresponding to its direction in stretching from the coasts of
Britain.]

It will be still less possible to refuse the junction of England with
the continent of France; the testimony of that peculiar body of chalk
and flint, which borders each of those opposite coasts, forms an
argument which is irrefragable. Now, in order to complete our continent,
we have only to connect the Shetland islands with the coast of Norway.
But this is a notion which, however probable it may appear, is not
proposed as a fact immediately supported by natural appearances; it is
only to be considered as an enlarged view in which we may contemplate
the operations of this earth upon a more extended scale; one which
may be conceived as a step in our cosmogeny, and one which, while it
illustrates the theory of the earth already given, is by no means
required in order to confirm a theory founded upon appearances which
leave no manner of doubt.

CHAP. IX.

_The Theory Illustrated, with a View of the
Summits of the Alps._

There are two different directions in which we may observe the
destruction of our land to proceed; in the one of these, the basis of
our continent is diminished by the incroachment of the sea; in the
other, again, it is the height of the land above the level of the sea
that is lowered. We have been considering the incroachment of the sea
upon the continent; let us now examine how far there may also appear
sufficient documents, by which we may be led to conclude a long progress
in time past, for the destruction of the solid mass of earth above the
sea, without diminishing its basis.

If we shall suppose this earth composed of horizontal strata, and of
one level surface, without the least protuberance remaining by which we
might be informed of what had been removed by time in the operation of
second causes, we should be ignorant of every thing of cosmogeny but
this, That the strata of the globe had been originally formed (by the
sea) in the same shape as we had found them on the surface of the land.
But this is not the shape of the surface of our continent: We have every
where abundance of eminences, sufficient to give us great information
w