found arranged in a similar manner in the interior of the earth, we ascribe to
them a similar origin; and the more we examine their characters in minute
detail, the more exact do we find the resemblance. Thus, for example, at various
heights and depths in the earth, and often far from seas, lakes, and rivers, we
meet with layers of rounded pebbles composed of flint, limestone, granite, or
other rocks, resembling the shingles of a sea-beach or the gravel in a torrent's
bed. Such layers of pebbles frequently alternate with others formed of sand or
fine sediment, just as we may see in the channel of a river descending from
hills bordering a coast, where the current sweeps down at one season coarse sand
and gravel, while at another, when the waters are low and less rapid, fine mud
and sand alone are carried seaward. (See Figure 7 Chapter 2.)

If a stratified arrangement, and the rounded form of pebbles, are alone
sufficient to lead us to the conclusion that certain rocks originated under
water, this opinion is farther confirmed by the distinct and independent
evidence of FOSSILS, so abundantly included in the earth's crust. By a FOSSIL is
meant any body, or the traces of the existence of any body, whether animal or
vegetable, which has been buried in the earth by natural causes. Now the remains
of animals, especially of aquatic species, are found almost everywhere imbedded
in stratified rocks, and sometimes, in the case of limestone, they are in such
abundance as to constitute the entire mass of the rock itself. Shells and corals
are the most frequent, and with them are often associated the bones and teeth of
fishes, fragments of wood, impressions of leaves, and other organic substances.
Fossil shells, of forms such as now abound in the sea, are met with far inland,
both near the surface, and at great depths below it. They occur at all heights
above the level of the ocean, having been observed at elevations of more than
8000 feet in the Pyrenees, 10,000 in the Alps, 13,000 in the Andes, and above
18,000 feet in the Himalaya. (Colonel R.J. Strachey found oolitic fossils 18,400
feet high in the Himalaya.)