CHAPTER XVIII

Summary

We have hitherto considered the changes wrought, since the times of history and tradition, by the continued action of aqueous causes on the earth's surface; and we have next to examine those resulting from igneous agency. As the rivers and springs on the land, and the tides and currents in the sea, have, with some slight modifications, been fixed and constant to certain localities from the earliest periods of which we have any records, so the volcano and the earthquake have, with few exceptions, continued, during the same lapse of time, to disturb the same regions. But as there are signs, on almost every part of our continent, of great power having been exerted by running water on the surface of the land, and by tides and currents on cliffs bordering the sea, where, in modern times, no rivers have excavated, and no tidal currents undermined—so we find signs of volcanic vents and violent subterranean movements in places where the action of fire has long been dormant. We can explain why the intensity of the force of aqueous causes should be developed in succession in different districts. Currents, for example, and tides, cannot destroy our coasts, shape out or silt up estuaries, break through isthmuses, and annihilate islands, form shoals in one place and remove them from another, without the direction and position of their destroying and transporting power becoming transferred to new localities.