Outlines of Geology, 65 



parative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies,*'* and! 

 shall almost exclusively confine myself to the detail of those facts 

 which lead to useful conclusions ; hypotheses I shall not enlarge 

 upon, because our time is very limited, and they rather amuse 

 than instruct ; and I shall only lightly touch upon such theories as 

 are remarkable for their notoriety, or important from their con- 

 nexion with, and illumination by, the leading facts of our 

 science : but upon this subject, I propose to explain myself more 

 fully in another lecture. 



Geological writers may be divided, into those who are purely 

 speculative ; those who have built theories upon the examination 

 of the structure of the earth's surface, or, at least, profess to 

 do so ; and those who, discarding speculation and theory, have 

 contented themselves with the abstract detail of facts. 



Of the former class, Dr. Thomas Burnet, who must not, as he 

 sometimes has been, be confounded with the celebrated Bishop of 

 Salisbury, with whom he was contemporary, stands pre-eminent. 

 This writer, in his Sacred Theory of the Earth, which was 

 originally published in Latin, between 16S0 and 1690, and 

 translated into English at the express request of Charles II., and 

 which has been extolled for its eloquence and ingenuity by many 

 of the most eminent authors, has taken a review of the past 

 changes of the globe, contrasts them with those it is now under- 

 going, and foretells those which it is to suffer ; and as the name 

 of Burnet is continually occurring in geological history, it will 

 not, I trust, be thought irrelevant, briefly to enumerate his 

 opinions, more especially as this is the only time that I shall 

 mention him or his doctrines. 



In the first place, he ransacks scriptural and profane history 

 selecting from each such statements as suit his particular object, 

 and endeavours to show that the primeval earth, as it arose 

 out of elementary chaos, was of a form and structure diffe- 

 rent from that which it now exhibits, and so contrived as to con- 

 tain within itself the materials necessary to the production of an 



* See, alsoj a Review of Mr. Penn's work, in the fifteenth volume of this 

 Journal. ;^ iJ • '' ^i 



VoL. XIX. F 



