IV.—The Sea Against Rain and Frost; or the Origin of Escarpments
As every part of the crust of the earth has at one time been the surface, it follows that all questions connected with the origin of the present “form of the ground” must be very impotant, and that on their issue the progress of Geology must in a great measure depend. But on this subject a very wide difference of opinion at present exists. According to one party, consisting of Professor Ramsay, Mr. Jukes, Mr. Geikie, Colonel Greenwood, Dr. Foster, and others, the more abrupt inequalities of the earth's surface have been produced by subaërial or atmospheric causes. According to the other school, embracing Sir Charles Lyell, Sir Roderick Murchison, Professors Sedgwick and Phillips, Mr.Edward Hull, etc., the sea has been the principal denuding or excavating agent.