or other, they must have been raised out of the sea again?

And that I propose to do in my next paper, when I speak of the
pebbles in the street.

Meanwhile I wish you to face fairly the truly grand idea, which all I
have said tends to prove true--that all the soil we see is made by
the destruction of older soils, whether soft as clay, or hard as
rock; that rain, rivers, and seas are perpetually melting and
grinding up old land, to compose new land out of it; and that it must
have been doing so, as long as rain, rivers, and seas have existed.
"But how did the first land of all get made?" I can only reply: A
natural question: but we can only answer that, by working from the
known to the unknown. While we are finding out how these later lands
were made and unmade, we may stumble on some hints as to how the
first primeval continents rose out of the bosom of the sea.

And thus I end this paper. I trust it has not been intolerably dull.
But I wanted at starting to show my readers something of the right
way of finding out truth on this and perhaps on all subjects; to make
some simple appeals to your common sense; and to get you to accept
some plain rules founded on common sense, which will be of infinite
use to both you and me in my future papers.

I hope, meanwhile, that you will agree with me, that there is plenty
of geological matter to be seen and thought over in the neighbourhood
of any town.

Be sure, that wherever there is a river, even a drain; and a stone
quarry, or even a roadside bank; much more where there is a sea, or a