Progress of Geology. 445 



day. To detail these would be an obvious waste of time. 

 They were only so far useful, as they promoted discussion, and 

 excited enthusiasm in controversy, and as their results were 

 deeper examination and sounder views. 



Geology may, in truth, be classed with the modern sciences, 

 since it is so recently as the year 1815 that the first geological 

 map of this, or probably of any other country, was pro- 

 duced In referring, thus early, to that great undertaking, 

 it is scarcely necessary to premise, that it was designed to 

 exhibit the boundaries of the various classes of rocks, strata, 

 and deposits, in this kingdom ; to define the areas they respec- 

 tively occupy ; to determine, with greater precision, the posi- 

 tion of such strata or substances as are subservient to the pur- 

 poses'of man ; and, at tlie same time, by ascertaining the actual 

 condition and arrangement of the several formations, to furnish 

 more accurate data than were before possessed, whence to 

 judge of the nature of those stupendous changes to which our 

 planet has been subjected. 



Prior to a period which perhaps may be brought down to 

 the middle of the eighteenth century, the fact of the extensive 

 succession of rocks, and their continuity across our island, does 

 not appear to have been suspected. The philosophers of pre- 

 ceding times furnish, in their writings, few hints that they enter- 

 tained any but the most vague notions of the distribution and 

 relative position of those formations which occasionally at- 

 tracted their attention. 



There wanted not individual collectors of such remarkable 

 productions as accident brought to view ; nor was there any 

 lack of theorists to devise ingenious systems, from these isolated 

 data, by which to account, in their estimation, not only for the 

 phenomena immediately before them, but for the formation, 

 destruction, and subsequent renovation of the entire globe. It 

 is foreign to the purpose of this article to refer more particu- 

 larly to these speculations ; no benefit would accrue from the 

 narrative, beyond the historical developement of a science 

 which had the usual share of ignorance, prejudice, and obscur- 

 ity to impede its infant progress.* 



* The following are the writers whose opinions have obtained the greatest 

 celebrity, as advocates for particular systems accounting for the formation 

 and subsequent alteration of the earth ; — 



Mr. Whitehurst taught that the concentric arrangement of the crust of the 

 globe was destroyed by the expansive force of subterranean fire. 



Burnet'?, theory supposes this crust to have been broken for the produc- 

 tion of the deluge. 



Leibnitz and Buffon believed the earth to have been liquefied by fire ; 

 in fact, that it is an extinguished sun or vitrified globe, whose surface has 

 beeu operated upon by a deluge. The latter assumes that the earth was 

 • H H 3 



