70 Outlines of Geology. 



all the part that had been raised ; let the middle now he again 

 raised a little, and this would he a good general representation of 

 most, if not all, large tracts of mountainous countries, together 

 with the parts adjacent, throughout the whole world. From this 

 formation of the earth it will follow, that we ought to meet with 

 the same kinds of earths, stones, and minerals, appearing at the 

 surface in long narrow slips, and lying parallel to the greatest 

 rise of any large ridge of mountains ; and so, in fact, we find 

 them. 



Mr. Mitchell's paper abounds in important geological generali- 

 zations, and he applies his theories and inquiries with much dex- 

 terity and success to the structure of the whole surface of the 

 globe, as well as to its individual parts. 



Whitehurst is another writer of great merit in the history of 

 English geology: in early life he passed a great part of his time 

 in Derbyshire, a county well suited to excite and satisfy a mind 

 endowed with the desire of penetrating into the formation of 

 rocks, and into the origin and history of organic remains. The 

 fruit of these investigations he submitted to the world in 1778, 

 in his " Inquiry into the Original State and Formation of the 

 Earth ;'* a work which, in its general outline and particular ex- 

 ecution, does no small credit to the genius and diligence of the 

 author. It is true, that much of it is tinctured by that unpropi- 

 tious taste for cosmogony, which we have reprobated in pre- 

 ceding writers ; but if we look to the practical details, we find 

 them faithful to nature, and described with correct minuteness , 

 To this point I need only quote the following passages. " The ar- 

 rangement of the strata,'* he says, " is such that they invariably 

 follow each other as it were in alphabetical order, or as a series 

 of numbers. I do not mean to insinuate that the strata are 

 alike in all the different regions of the earth, with respect to 

 thickness or quality, for experience shows the contrary ; but that 

 in each particular part, how much soever they may differ, yet 

 they follow each other in a regular succession." 



In the writings of Mitchell, and of Whitehurst, then, we begin 

 to discern something like a genuine and scientific investigation 



