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to the intellect, than those already mentioned, to the heart. 

 "We walk with the ingenious and discerning Werner, and the 

 profound and speculative liutton, amidst rocks of adaman- 

 tine hardness, whose various strata resemble the gradual and 

 successive deposit of the waters; and without a blind un- 

 qualified and implicit adherence to either of these philoso- 

 phers, we acknowledge but doubtingly that a force less than 

 of fire could scarcely have produced the change. The dis- 

 integration of these rocks seems to supply the sandy bed of 

 the neighbouring torrent; and if we pursue its course to the 

 sea, we learn that " the capacious bed of waters" owes its 



■ formation to the same materials. It appears as if the lofty 

 mountains and solid plains were carried b}' a slow but un- 

 ceasing progress into the abyss of the ocean ; and we look 

 round us, with inquisitive eyes, to discover if the dry land 

 we inhabit has ever been subjected to the same astonishing 

 revolution. We pursue the novelties that invite us; ahd 



- fancy that we are taught in every page of the volume of 

 nature, that twice this earth was in the bosom of the waters, 

 and as often heaved above them by the force of subter- 

 ranean fires, which liquefied or baked it into the manifold 

 forms that diversify its surface. We shrink from so incre- 

 dible a creed, but rocks of enormous magnitude excite our 

 .attention ; and the vertical strata of their masses, which seem 

 to have been once horizontal, compel us to acknowledge 

 that the power which heaved them upright must have been 

 adequate to events the most tremendous ; and reluctantly we 



