No doubt the
fringe of an ice-covered region must be always liable to them;
but, if we examine the records of such catastrophes in
historical times, those produced in the deltas of great rivers,
or in lowlands like Holland, by sudden floods, combined with
gales of wind or with unusual tides, far excel all others.
With respect to such inundations as are the consequences of
earthquakes, and other slight movements of the crust of the
earth, I have never heard of anything to show that they were
more frequent and severer in the quaternary or tertiary epochs
than they are now. In the discussion of these, as of all other
geological problems, the appeal to needless catastrophes is born
of that impatience of the slow and painful search after
sufficient causes, in the ordinary course of nature, which is a
temptation to all, though only energetic ignorance nowadays
completely succumbs to it.
POSTSCRIPT.
My best thanks are due to Mr. Gladstone for his courteous
withdrawal of one of the statements to which I have thought it
needful to take exception. The familiarity with controversy, to
which Mr. Gladstone alludes, will have accustomed him to the
misadventures which arise when, as sometimes will happen in the
heat of fence, the buttons come off the foils. I trust that any
scratch which he may have received will heal as quickly as my
own flesh wounds have done.
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