Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

666 A FEW REMARKS together anil squeezed in mud within a few years from the present time. One remarkable place, easy of access, where any person can inspect these shelly remains, is Port San Julian. There, cliff's, from ten to a hundred feet high, are composed of nothing but such earth and fossils ; and as those dug from the very tops of the cliff's are just as much compressed as those at any other part, it follows that they were acted upon by an immense weight not now existing. From this one simple fact may be deduced the conclusions — that Patagonia was once under the sea ; that the sea grew deeper over the land in a tumultuous manner, rushing to and fro, tearing up and heaping together shells which once grew regularly or in beds : that the depth of water afterwards became so great as to squeeze or mass the earth and shells together by its enormous pressure ; and that after being so forced down, the cohesion of the mass became sufficient to resist the separating power of other waves, during the subsidence of that ocean which had overwhelmed the land. If it be shewn that Patagonia was under a deep sea, not in consequence of the land having sunk, but because of the water having risen, it will follow as a necessary consequence that every other portion of the globe must have been flooded to a nearly equal height, at the same time; since the ten- dency to equilibrium in fluids would prevent any one part of an ocean from rising much above any other part, unless sustained at a greater elevation by external force ; such as the attraction of the moon, or sun ; or a strong wind ; or momen- tum derived from their agency. Hence therefore, if Patagonia was covered to a great depth, all the world was covered to a great depth ; and from those shells alone my own mind is convinced, (independent of the Scripture) that this earth has undergone an universal deluge. The immense fields of lava, spoken of in a preceding page (633), and which to an ordinary observer appear to be horizontal, are spread almost evenly over such an extent of country, that the only probable conclusion seems to be, that the lava was ejected while a deep sea covered the earth, and