LIFE of Dr HUT 'TON. 73 



beds, lay in horizontal planes at the bottom of the fea, and was 

 not yet difturbed by that inimeafurable force which has burft 

 afunder the folid pavement of the globe. Revolutions flill more 

 remote appeared in the diftance of this extraordinary perfpec- 

 tive *. The mind feemed to grow giddy by looking fo far into 

 the abyfs of time ; and while we liftened with earneflnefs and 

 admiration to the philofopher who was now unfolding to us the 

 order and feries of thefe wonderful events, we became fenfible 

 how much farther reafon may fometimes go than imagination 

 can venture to follow. As for the reft, we were truly fortunate 

 in the courfe we had purfued in this excurfion ; a great i^iumber 

 of other curious and important fads prefented themfelves, and 

 we returned, having collecfled, in one day, more ample materials 

 for future fpeculation, than have fometimes refulted from years 

 of diligent and laborious refearch. 



In the latter part of this fame fummer, (1788), Dr Huttom 

 accompanied the Duke of Athol to the Ifle of Man, with a 

 view of making a mineral furvey of that ifland. What he 

 faw there, however, was not much calculated to illuftrate any of 

 the great fads in geology. He found the main body of the 

 ifland to confift of primitive fchiflus, much inclined, and more 

 interfered with quartzy veins than the correfponding fchiflus 

 in the fouth of Scotland. In two places on the oppofite fides of 

 the ifland, this fchiflus was covered by fecondary fb-ata, but 

 the jundion was no where vifible. Some granite veins were ob- 

 ferved in the fchiflus, and many loofe blocks of that flone were 

 met with in the foil, or on the furface, but no mafs of it was to 

 be feen in its native place. The direclion of the primitive flra- 

 ta correfponded very well with that in Galloway, running near- 



K 2 ly 



* For a fuller deduftion of the conclufions here referred to, fee Theory of the 

 Earth, Vol. I. p. 458. ; alfo lUuJlrations of the Hvttonian "Theory, p. 213. 



