ON THE BASALTIC COUNTRY IN IRELAND. £4^ 



rectilineal course distinguish the basaltic arrangement^ of 

 which I have been treating. 



We have, it is true, occasonal depressions of our strata, Sometimes 

 where they obviously have subsided, and no doubt tVom a *ubs?deTfrom 

 failure of support below; but in no instance that I have failure of their 

 met with, in our area, are these attended by the slightest su PP ort *- 

 concussion ; the permanent and subsided parts, with us, 

 still preserve their parallelism, and the continuity of their 4* 



material; whence it is probable this event took place pre- 

 vious to the induration of the strata, ant} of course antece- 

 dent to the period, to which I limit myself. |W . 



B u f Foil ascribes our superficial inequalities to the agita- Suffoifs type* 

 tion of the waters while thev covered our Earth, and argues thesis - 

 from the resemblance these inequalities bear to the waves of 

 the sea; a resemblance I cannot trace in any country, 

 which I have observed ; nor could any sudden and perpen- 

 dicular abruptions ever have been produced by any agita- 

 tion of the waters. • *> m tc%VMUij'man 



Professor Playfair considers rivers as having formed not piayfair's. 

 only the beds, or channels in which they flow, but also the 

 whole of the vallies through which they run, and in general 

 all the inequalities of our surface; but an attentive observer, 

 tracing the course of any of our most rapid rivers, would 

 soon perceive, that the quantity of its depredations have 

 been comparatively insignificant, and that they can be de- 

 termined with precision ; the river has no doubt in several 

 places extended itself considerably on both sides; but in 

 the intermediate space, between the remotest boundaries it 

 ever reached, it levels, instead of raising inequalities. 



The same result I apprehend would follow from the ope- Decay and de- 

 rations of another agent, which theorists are in the habit of compobiuou. 

 calling in to their aid, when they cannot find some certain 

 material, which from their theory we have reason to expect; 

 they then tell us it has been carried off, and lost in the suite 

 of degradations and decompositions. 



But delay and decomposition, instead of creating inequa- But tl 

 lities, would produce a contrary effect, and deface those ac- would wear 

 tually existing; they would gradually abate the height of|^"^ paro " 

 our perpendicular facades, and increase the green steep at 

 their bases by the accumulation of the crumbling and 



mouldering 



