50 HISrORT of the SOCIETT. 



took a fliarc, and wrote feveral pieces, in which the grave and 

 the ludicrous were both occaGonally employed. None of thefe 

 pieces have been publifhed ; but the plan that was in the end 

 adopted was that in favour of which they were written. It is 

 unneceflary, however, to enter into the merits of a queftion 

 which has long ceafed to intereft; the public. 



From the time of fixing his refidence in Edinburgh, Dr Hut- 

 ton had been a member of the Philofophical Society, known to 

 the world by the three volumes of phyfical and literary effays fo 

 much and fo juftly efteemed *. In that fociety he read feveral 

 papers; but it was during the time that elapfed between the 

 publication of the lafl of the volumes juft mentioned, and the 

 incorporation of the Philofophical into the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh ; which lafh was eftabliflied by a royal charter in 1 783. 

 None of thefe papers have been publifhed, except one in the 

 fecond volume of the "tranfaSlions of the Royal Society, " On cer- 

 tain Natural Appearances of the Ground on the Hill of Arthur* s 

 Seat:' 



The inftitution of the Royal Society of Edinburgh had the 

 good effed of calling forth ivoix Dr Hutton the firfl; fketch of a 

 theory of the earth, the formation of which had been the great ob- 

 jedl of his life. From the date formerly mentioned, when he was 

 yet a very young man, and making excurfions on foot through 

 the different counties of England, till that which we are now 

 arrived at, a period of about thirty years, he had never ceafed to 

 fludy the natural hiflory of the globe, with a view of afcertain- 



ing 



• The Philofophical Society was inAituted about the year 1739. ^^ ^^ ^°" 

 lume of ^^jj was publifhed in 1754 ; the fecond in 1756; the third in 1771. 

 From the year 1777,10 1782, the meetings of the Society were pretty regular, much 

 owing to the zeal of Lord Kames. Mr Maclaukin may be regarded as the 

 founder of this Society. 



