112. Many more arguments, all leading to the same conclusion, may be deduced from the general facts, known in the natural history of mountains; and, if the Oreologist would trace back the progress of waste, till he come in sight of that original structure, of which the remains are still so vast, he perceives an immense mass of solid rock, naked and unshapely, as it first emerged from the deep, and incomparably greater than all that is now before him. The operation of rains and torrents, modified by the hardness and tenacity of the rock, has worked the whole into its present form; has hollowed out the vallies, and gradually detached the mountains from the general mass, cutting down their sides into steep precipices at one place, and smoothing them into gentle declivities at another. From this has resulted a transportation of materials, which, both for the quantity of the whole, and the magnitude of the individual fragments, must seem incredible to every one, who has not learned to calculate the effects of continued action, and to reflect, that length of time can convert accidental into steady causes. Hence fragments of rock, from the central chain, are found to have travelled into distant vallies, even where many inferior ridges intervene: hence the granite of Mont Blanc is seen in the plains of Lombardy, or on the sides of Jura; and the ruins of the Carpathian mountains lie scattered over the shores of the Baltic.[32]
113. Thus, with Dr Hutton, we shall be disposed to consider those great chains of mountains, which traverse the surface of the globe, as cut out of masses vastly greater, and more lofty than any thing that now remains. The present appearances afford no data for calculating the original magnitude of these masses, or the height to which they may have been elevated. The nearest estimate we can form is, where a chain or group of mountains, like those of Rosa in the Alps, is horizontally stratified, and where, of consequence, the undisturbed position of the mineral beds enables us to refer the whole of the present inequalities of the surface to the operation of waste or decay. These mountains, as they now stand, may not inaptly be compared to the pillars of earth which workmen leave behind them, to afford a measure of the whole quantity of earth which they have removed. As the pillars, (considering the mountains as such,) are in this case of less height than they originally were, so the measure furnished by them is but a limit, which the quantity sought must necessarily exceed.
114. Such, according to Dr Hutton's theory, are the changes which the daily operations of waste have produced on the surface of the globe. These operations, inconsiderable if taken separately, become great, by conspiring all to the same end, never counteracting one another, but proceeding, through a period of indefinite extent, continually in the same direction. Thus every thing descends, nothing returns upward; the hard and solid bodies every where dissolve, and the loose and soft no where consolidate. The powers which tend to preserve, and those which tend to change the condition of the earth's surface, are never in equilibrio; the latter are, in all cases, the most powerful, and, in respect of the former, are like living in comparison of dead forces. Hence the law of decay is one which suffers no exception: The elements of all bodies were once loose and unconnected, and to the same state nature has appointed that they should all return.
115. It affords no presumption against the reality of this progress, that, in respect of man, it is too slow to be immediately perceived: The utmost portion of it to which our experience can extend, is evanescent, in comparison with the whole, and must be regarded as the momentary increment of a vast progression, circumscribed by no other limits than the duration of the world. TIME performs the office of integrating the infinitesimal parts of which this progression is made up; it collects them into one sum, and produces from them an amount greater than any that can be assigned.
116. While on the surface of the earth so much is every where going to decay, no new production of mineral substances is found in any region accessible to man. The instances of what are called petrifactions, or the formation of stony substances by means of water, which we sometimes observe, whether they be ferruginous concretions, or calcareous, or, as happens in some rare cases, siliceous stalactites, are too few in number, and too inconsiderable in extent, to be deemed material exceptions to this general rule. The bodies thus generated, also, are no sooner formed, than they become subject to waste and dissolution, like all the other hard substances in nature; so that they but retard for a while the progress by which they are all resolved into dust, and sooner or later committed to the bosom of the deep.
117. We are not, however, to imagine, that there is no where any means of repairing this waste; for, on comparing the conclusion at which we are now arrived, viz. that the present continents are all going to decay, and their materials descending into the ocean, with the proposition first laid down, that these same continents are composed of materials which must have been collected from the decay of former rocks, it is impossible not to recognise two corresponding steps of the same progress; of a progress, by which mineral substances are subjected to the same series of changes, and alternately wasted away and renovated. In the same manner, as the present mineral substances derive their origin from substances similar to themselves; so, from the land now going to decay, the sand and gravel forming on the sea shore, or in the beds of rivers; from the shells and corals, which in such enormous quantities are every day accumulated in the bosom of the sea; from the drift wood, and the multitude of vegetable and animal remains continually deposited in the ocean: from all these we cannot doubt, that strata are now forming in those regions, to which nature seems to have confined the powers of mineral reproduction; from which, after being consolidated, they are again destined to emerge, and to exhibit a series of changes similar to the past.[33]
118. How often these vicissitudes of decay and renovation have been repeated, is not for us to determine: they constitute a series, of which, as the author of this theory has remarked, we neither see the beginning nor the end; a circumstance that accords well with what is known concerning other parts of the economy of the world. In the continuation of the different species of animals and vegetables that inhabit the earth, we discern neither a beginning nor an end; and, in the planetary motions, where geometry has carried the eye so far both into the future and the past, we discover no mark, either of the commencement or the termination of the present order.[34] It is unreasonable, indeed, to suppose, that such marks should any where exist. The Author of nature has not given laws to the universe, which, like the institutions of men, carry in themselves the elements of their own destruction. He has not permitted, in his works, any symptom of infancy or of old age, or any sign by which we may estimate either their fixture or their past duration. He may put an end, as be no doubt gave a beginning, to the present system, at some determinate period; but we may safely conclude, that this great catastrophe will not be brought about by any of the laws now existing, and that it is not indicated by any thing which we perceive.