v] , OF EVOLUTION 39 



III. Changes of Level. 



IV. The Production of New Rocks from the interior of the 

 globe upon its surface. 



Changes which in their general characters bear so strong an 

 analogy to those which are suspected to have occurred in the 

 earlier ages of the world's history, that, until the processes which 

 give rise to them have been maturely studied under every shape, 

 and then applied with strict impartiality to explain the appearances 

 in question ; and until, after a long investigation, and with the 

 most liberal allowances for all possible variations, and an unlimited 

 series of ages, they have been found wholly inadequate to the 

 purpose, it would be the height of absurdity to have recourse 

 to any gratuitous and unexampled hypothesis for the solution 

 of these analogous facts 2t) . 



It was not till 1826, four years after the completion 

 of the work, that Scrope managed to publish his book 

 on the Auvergne, and to tear himself away from 

 the speculative questions by which he had become 

 obsessed. No one could be more candid than he 

 was in acknowledging the causes of his failure to 

 impress his views upon his contemporaries. Writing 

 in 1858, he said of his Considerations on Volcanos : 



* In that work unfortunately were included some speculations 

 on theoretic cosmogony, which the public mind was not at that 

 time prepared to entertain. Nor was this my first attempt at 

 authorship, sufficiently well composed, arranged or even printed, 

 to secure a fair appreciation for the really sound and, I believe, 

 original views on many points of geological interest which it 

 contained. I ought, no doubt, to have begun with a description 



