312 Report on a Manuscript Wor\ ofM. Andre . 

 morning — and the bowels are to be first relieved by four 

 grains of calomel, and i.n half an hour a table-spoonful of 

 castor oil, to be repealed every two hours with fomentations. 

 This practice, so successfully employed, of mercury, as a spe- 

 cific in this disease^ appears to be unknown by Dr. Darwin. 



[To be continued.] 



LVI. Report on a Manuscript Work of M. Andre, for- 

 merly known under the Name of P. Chrysologue de 

 Gy, entitled A Theory of the actual Surface of the Earth. 

 By MM. Hauy, Levierre, and Cuvier. Read to the 

 Class of Mathematical and Physical Sciences in the Na- 

 tional Institute, 1807. « 



[Continued from p. 173.} 



About the commencement of the 18th century, it began 

 to be considered, that one single inundation, however vio- 

 lent it might be, could not produce such immense effects, 

 of which every day developed more and more their extent. 



It was then necessary to admit of a long series of opera- 

 tions either slow or sudden ; and those geologists who stili 

 maintained the real existence of a deluge, considered it 

 simply as the last of the revolutions which have contributed 

 to bring the globe into the state we now see it. 



This step once taken, hypotheses were no longer li- 

 mited. In this branch of natural history the systematical 

 method of Descartes was again revived, although Newton 

 appeared to have banished it for ever from the physical sci- 

 ences. Every one conceived a principle a priori, or founded 

 solely on a very small number of partial observations, and 

 employed his skill to accommodate, well or ill, the facts 

 within his knowledge. But, by a fatality hardly con*- 

 ceivable, in the midst of all those efforts, it was almost en- 

 tirely neglected to extend our knowledge of facts ; and when 

 it is remembered that Leibnitz arid BufTon were among the 

 philosophers of whom we speak", it will be allowed that it 

 was neither for want of genius nor talents, that so erroneous 

 a method was adopted. 



It is thus that the number of systems of geology is so 



augmented., 



