But, after all, one foot removed off the general level of the country since the creation of man, according to Mosaic chronology, is certainly not a very great quantity. No person but one who had some preconceived opinions to maintain, would ever think of concluding that one foot of soil during 6,000 years was an extravagant quantity to be washed off the face of the country by rain and floods during that long period. Those who reside in the country and are eye-witnesses of the actual effects of heavy rains upon the soil, our soft country roads, ditches, brooks, and rivers, will have considerable difficulty in actually believing that only one foot has been washed away during the past 6,000 years. Some may probably admit that a foot of soil may be washed off during a period so long as 6,000 years, and may tell us that what they deny is not that a foot of loose and soft soil, but a foot of solid rock can be washed away during that period. But a moment’s reflection must convince them that, unless the rocks of the country were disintegrating and decomposing as rapidly into soil as the rain is carrying the soil away, the surface of the country would ultimately become bare rock. It is true that the surface of our country in many places is protected by a thick covering of boulder clay; but when this has once been removed, the rocks will then disintegrate far more rapidly than they are doing at present. But slow as is the rate at which the country is being denuded, yet when we take into consideration a period so enormous as 6 millions of years, we find that the results of denudation are really startling. One thousand feet of solid rock during that period would be removed from off the face of the country. But if the mean level of the country would be lowered 1,000 feet in 6 millions of years, how much would our valleys and glens be deepened during that period? This is a problem well worthy of the consideration of those who treat with ridicule the idea that the general features of our country have been carved out by subaërial agency. In consequence of the retardation of the earth’s rotation, occasioned by the friction of the tidal wave, the sea-level must be slowly sinking at the equator and rising at the poles. But it is probable that the land at the equator is being lowered by denudation as rapidly as the sea-level is sinking. _Nearly one mile must have been worn off the equator during the past 12 millions of years_, if the rate of denudation all along the equator be equal to that of the basin of the Ganges. It therefore follows that we cannot infer from the present shape of our globe what was its form, or the rate at which it was rotating, at the time when its crust became solidified. Although it had been as oblate as the planet Jupiter, denudation must in time have given it its present form.