power from the bottom of the sea, and many districts in South America have been depressed by the same causes. Changes as extensive have been, in all probability, effected by forces “equally or more powerful, but acting with less irregularity, and so distributed over time as to produce none of those interregnums of chaotic anarchy which we are apt to think (perhaps erroneously) great disfigurements of an order so beautiful and harmonious as that of nature.”[246] These forces are, without doubt, even now in action. Had it not been for these convulsive disturbances of the surface, the earth would have presented an almost uniform plain, and it would have been ill-adapted for the abode of man. The hills raised by the disturbances of nature, and the valleys worn by the storms of ages, minister especially to his wants, and afford him the means of enjoyment which he could not possess had the surface been otherwise formed. The “iced mountain tops,” condensing the clouds which pass over them, send down healthful streams to the valleys, and supply the springs of the earth, thus securing the fertility and salubrity of the distant plains. The severities of climate are mitigated by these conditions, and both the people of the tropics and those dwelling near the poles are equally benefited by them. Gravitation, cohesion, motion, chemical force, heat, and electricity, must, from that hypothetical time when the earth floated a cloud of nebulous vapour, in a state of gradual condensation up to the present moment, have been exercising their powers, and regulating the mutations of matter. When the dry land was beneath the waters, and when darkness was upon the face of the deep, the same great operations as those which are now in progress in the depths of the Atlantic, or in the still waters of our inland lakes, were in full activity. At length the dry land appears; and--mystery of mysteries--it soon becomes teeming with life in all the forms of vegetable and animal beauty, under the aspect of the beams of a glorious sun. Geology teaches us to regard our position upon the earth as one far in advance of all former creations. It bids us look back through the enormous vista of time, and see, shining still in the remotest distance, the light which exposes to our vision many of nature’s holy wonders. The elements which now make up this strangely beautiful fabric of muscle, nerves, and bone, have passed through many ordeals, ere yet it became fashioned to hold the human soul. No grain of matter has been added to the planet, since it was weighed in a balance, and poised with other worlds. No grain of matter can be removed from it. But in virtue of those forces which seem to originate in the sun, “the soul of the great earth,” a succession of new forms has been produced, as the old things have passed away.