If, in examining our land, we shall find a mass of matter which had been
evidently formed originally in the ordinary manner of stratification,
but which is now extremely distorted in its structure, and displaced in
its position,--which is also extremely consolidated in its mass, and
variously changed in its composition,--which therefore has the marks
of its original or marine composition extremely obliterated, and many
subsequent veins of melted mineral matter interjected; we should then
reason to suppose that here were masses of matter which, though not
different in their origin from those that are gradually deposited at the
bottom of the ocean, have been more acted upon by subterranean heat and
the expanding power, that is to say, have been changed in a greater
degree by the operations of the mineral region. If this conclusion shall
be thought reasonable, then here is an explanation of all the peculiar
appearances of the alpine schistus masses of our land, those parts which
have been erroneously considered as primitive in the constitution of the
earth.
We are thus led to suppose, that some parts of our earth may have
undergone the vicissitudes of sea and land more than once, having been
changed from the summit of a continent to the bottom of the sea, and
again erected, with the rest of that bottom, into the place of land.
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