the Basaltic District in the North of Ireland, 259 



The worn state of those faults, which make at present no 

 alteration in the level of the strata on each side of them, in 

 common with those which, as doing otherwise, might admit 

 of explanation bv the mere slip or subsidence of one side, 

 obtruded the conclusion, that successive and general heav- 

 ings of the surface were necessary, to account for this phae- 

 nomenon, so universally overlooked by geologists in their 

 writings; and Gravity, that most powerful of known agents, 

 which, now that no satellitic body remains nearer to the 

 earth than 240,000 miles, daily heaves up a mass or column 

 of sea water, perhaps 1000 miles diameter and ten feet high ! 

 appeared to me as the probable cause, through the medium 

 of a large and perhaps very dense body, that might have re- 

 volved round this globe, at that awful but important period, 

 when f* God said, Let the waters be gathered together, and 

 let the dry land appear." 



These ideas of accounting for the universality and worn 

 state of faults, I had very shortly after the opportunity of 

 explaining to the worthy President of the Royal Society, 

 when on a visit to that inestimable character the late Duke 

 of Bedford, in a day's ride over the district which had fur- 

 nished the materials for these speculations, and while the 

 progress of His Grace's extensive works then carrying on, 

 admitted of verifying most of the facts. The sudden loss 

 of my former patron, having occasioned the turning of my 

 attention more particularly to the acquirement of geological 

 knowledge, I have since had the happiness of finding these 

 first ideas of mine, when applied to a satellite moving near 

 enough and with attraction sufficient, to reverse the direc~ 

 tion of gravity for the instant of its passage, over any given 

 tract on the earth's surface, as fully adequate to account for 

 the numerous, and to me new and astonishing facts, which 

 my researches in Sussex, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, &c, 

 have since furnished : the details of these I intend to pub- 

 lish, as soon as my observations on Derbyshire and the sur- 

 rounding borders of other counties shall be completed, and 

 my professional avocations will allow. In the mean time, 

 I have been anxious, to suggest the above effects and their 

 causes, for the consideration of those, who, like Mr. IVm. 



R 2 Smith, 



