In each of these periods, therefore, the condition of
the earth was supposed to be much the same as it is now--sediment
was quietly accumulated at the bottom of the sea, and animals and
plants flourished uninterruptedly in successive generations.
Each period of tranquillity, however, was believed to have been,
sooner or later, put an end to by a sudden and awful convulsion
of nature, ushering in a brief and paroxysmal period, in which
the great physical forces were unchained and permitted to spring
into a portentous activity. The forces of subterranean fire,
with their concomitant phenomena of earthquake and volcano, were
chiefly relied upon as the efficient causes of these periods of
spasm and revolution. Enormous elevations of portions of the
earth's crust were thus believed to be produced, accompanied by
corresponding and equally gigantic depressions of other portions.
In this way new ranges of mountains were produced, and previously
existing ranges levelled with the ground, seas were converted into
dry land, and continents buried beneath the ocean--catastrophe
following catastrophe, till the earth was rendered uninhabitable,
and its races of animals and plants were extinguished, never to
reappear in the same form. Finally, it was believed that this
feverish activity ultimately died out, and that the ancient peace
once more came to reign upon the earth.
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