•REVIEWS OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 333 



The following extract respecting the rational mode of inquiry is excellent : — 



" The laws of Nature are constant, but so adjusted to the material world that the effects thoy 

 produce are proportioned to quantity and kind of matter, situation and direction of action, and 

 other circumstances. A precise knowledge of the effects, and a correct view of all the agencies 

 concerned, will lead us to the determination of the conditions under which the laws operated. In 

 no other way than this has any one of the problems of organic and inorganic Nature, as we now 

 behold her, been solved ; no other process can possibly lead to real knowledge of the prior condi- 

 tions of the globe. Geology can only pretend to the rank of science in proportion as it proceeds 

 upon the principles of the Inductive Philosophy, and is aided by the advance of collateral inquiries. 

 * * * Born in our own days, — based on modern observation?, — interpreted by modern phi- 

 losophy, — why should we seek rational Geology in the monstrous systems of Astronomy and 

 Cosmogony which once satisfied Greece and Egypt ? Why attempt the vain task of tracing the 

 various errors of those writers of later days, who, knowing nothing of chemical and vital laws, 

 and little of mechanical science, proposed hypotheses instead of collecting facts, and referred 

 phenomena, which they had not correctly observed, to forces which they had never truly ascer- 

 tained ; resigned the beautiful monuments of ancient life, the fossil remains of animals and plants, 

 to a plastic force of Nature, and attributed the regular and orderly structure of our planet to a 

 general destruction and ruin of an earlier sphere ?" — p. 2. 



In another chapter it is satisfactorily demonstrated that the average tempera- 

 ture of the whole earth is on the decrease — a fact which has been made the basis 

 of somewhat unwarrantable conclusions. The trifling difference alluded to would 

 certainly not account for the quondam growth of tropical plants in even those 

 portions of the world now termed temperate — much less where the same order of 

 vegetation flourished in the polar regions. 



Mr. Phillips, as will already have been anticipated, makes no reference to the 

 mosaic writings in support of his arguments. Had he done so, he must either 

 have been no geologist at all, or have sacrificed truth by twisting acknowledged 

 facts so as to suit the traditional records of the Scriptures. Let any impartial 

 and competent person, for instance, read the mosaic account of the creation of 

 the world and the geological view of the case, attentively, and let him then 

 believe either one or the other, but not both. In order to render the point in 

 dispute clear to the student, with a view of throwing open the arena, so as to 

 allow all to judge the correctness of our views, it will be necessary to mention a 

 few of the leading and generally-acknowledged principles of Geology. 



The crust of the earth consists of stratified and unstratified rocks, the former 

 being subaqueous deposits, and the latter — the crystalline or other unstratified 

 rocks — being of igneous origin. The world is supposed to have been originally 

 filled with gas, from which every variety of matter has proceeded ; but the truth 

 or falsity of this is at present of little importance. Stratified rocks are divided 

 into primary, secondary, tertiary, and supratertiary. The primary strata rest on 

 unstratified granitic rocks, which form the limits to our investigations in the 

 bowels of the earth. On the primary strata no organic remains are found. 

 Superimposed upon the primary strata are those termed secondary, being 



vol. in. — NO. xxi. 2 Y 



