323 



aroused to know what was thought of it at the time it first 

 appeared, and what influence it had on the young science. 



It contains a great mass of information which at first inspection 

 seems to be classified, but this is not so. Instances abound 

 throughout in which facts and explanations are placed under one 

 heading which belong to another. There is no index nor table of 

 contents. It appears as if the work was the result of notes made 

 at different times between 1799, or perhaps earlier, and 1812, and 

 that after these detached notes were strung together, the whole 

 was never revised with the object of seeing if the different portions 

 harmonized. Many inconsistencies are the consequence. Here is 

 one example. At p. 105 it is mentioned that between the Great 

 Oolite and Inferior Oolite is a rock " which, as being of little 

 consequence, and of no utility, I here pass unnoticed." No name 

 is given to it. At p. 129 this same stratum is spoken of as " clay 

 with Fuller's earth, 140 feet thick;" and at p. 427 this Fuller's 

 earth is said to be a " prime necessity in the manufacturing of 

 cloth." I have quoted above an extract on his method of working. 

 Possibly in like manner, as each heading was completed, it was put 

 aside and not refeiTcd to again. 



But while we wonder at such want of care, still more do we 

 wonder at the deductions drawn from his facts. 



After giving the order, range, thickness, dip, and crop of the 

 strata — after pointing out that the accumulation of material under 

 water was the only explanation that would account for some of the 

 phenomena attendant on the consolidation of the strata — after 

 speaking of the highest mountains as at one time amongst the 

 deepest parts of the ocean — after saying that a great question to 

 be solved was, how the strata originally horizontal had become 

 vertical or much inclined — after inferring that the different 

 " extraneous fossils " indicated different depths and conditions of 

 sea bottom — after showing proofs of successive dislocations the 

 strata had undergone, and adding that attrition had in many cases 

 modified the first effects of the dislocations — after laying stress on 

 the need of recognizing air, rain, dew, and frost as agents always 

 changing the contour of a country, he most suddenly reminds us 

 that all this is laid before us to prove that our continents have not 



