ise a stratum
far to the west, which, though occupying the same position relatively to
other beds, formed of like materials, and containing like fossils, will
yet be perhaps a million years later in date.

* * * * *

But the illegitimacy, or at any rate the great doubtfulness, of many
current geological inferences, is best seen when we contemplate
terrestrial changes now going on; and ask how far such inferences are
countenanced by them. If we carry out rigorously the modern method of
interpreting geological phenomena, which Sir Charles Lyell has done so
much to establish--that of referring them to causes like those at
present in action--we cannot fail to see how improbable are sundry of
the received conclusions.

Along each shore which is being worn away by the waves, there are being
formed mud, sand, and pebbles. This detritus has, in each locality, a
more or less special character; determined by the nature of the strata
destroyed. In the English Channel it is not the same as in the Irish
Channel; on the east coast of Ireland it is not the same as on the west
coast; and so throughout. At the mouth of each great river, there is
being deposited sediment differing more or less from that deposited at
the mouths of other rivers in colour and quality; forming strata which
are here red, there yellow, and elsewhere brown, grey, or dirty white.
Besides which various formations, going on in deltas and along shores,
there are some much wider, and still more strongly contrasted,
formations. At the bottom of the AEgean Sea, there is accumulating a bed
of Pteropod shells, which will eventually, no doubt, become a calcareous
rock. For some hundreds of thousands of square miles, the ocean-bed
between Great Britain and North America, is being covered with a stratum
of chalk; and over large areas in the Pacific, there are going on
deposits of coralline limestone. Thus, there are at this moment being
produced in different places multitudinous strata differing from one
another in lithological characters. Name at random any part of the
sea-bottom, and ask whether the deposit there taking place is like the
deposit taking place at some distant part of the sea-bottom, and the
almost-certainly correct answer will be--No. The chances are not in
favour of similarity, but against it--many to one against it.

In the order of superposition of strata there is being established a
like variety. Each region of the Ea