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RAIN AND RIVERS.

LONDON

PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO.

NEW-STREET SQUARE

RAIN AND RIVERS

OR

HUTTON AND PLAYFAIR

AGAINST

LYELL AND ALL COMERS.

BY COLONEL GEORGE GREENWOOD.

Multa renascentur quæ jam cecidere, cadentque

Quæ nunc sunt in honore.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1866.

The right of translation is reserved.

188. e. 12.

PREFACE.

I PREFACE the Second Edition with this letter, which appeared in the Athenæum, February 17, 1866 :

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Rain and Rivers. In the Journal of the Geological Society, published in November last, Messrs. Foster and Topley, of the Government Geological Survey, attribute the denudation of the Weald Hill to Rain and Rivers.' More than this, there appears to be a strong tendency to the Rain and River' theory among the young practical geologists of the Government Survey (who have no theories of their own to defend), whether in England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, or India. So far so good. Great A is accomplished; but there is still a great B to be learnt. The great B is, that man and mammalia, that is, the most perfect creatures, may have existed on the land from the beginning, and before the first strata were formed in the sea, and consequently that Darwinism and the development' theory are myths. The entire surface of the earth is covered with soil. That soil is rotted subsoil. Owing to atmospheric disintegration, soil is in constant formation over the entire surface of the earth. Owing to the erosion of ‘Rain and Rivers,' that soil is in constant movement down the

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