OBSERVATIONS on the PROOFS of the HUTTONIAN 

 THEORY of the EARTH, adduced by Sir JAMES HALL, 

 Bart. 5j' RICHARD KIRWAN, Efq-, L.L.D. F.R.S. and 

 P. R. LA. 



1800. 



XTlS fome pofitions, which I laid down in my examination of Read Feb. 8, 

 Dr. Hutton's theory of the earth, may feem queftionable from 

 the ingenious reafoning employed by Sir James Hall in the third 

 volume of the Edinburgh tranfadions to corroborate fome of 

 Dr. Hutton's affertions, and may even be thought inconfiftent with 

 fome of the curious refults that occurred in the highly intereflirig 

 experiments inftituted by the worthy Baronet, inferted in the 

 fifth volume of the Edinburgh tranfadions, (a printed tranfcript 

 of which he has had the goodnefs to fend me) I think it a duty 

 incumbent upon me to examine both the general reafoning em- 

 ployed by him, and the confequences fairly deducible from his 

 experiments ; fanciful and groundlefs as the Huttonian tl^eory 

 feems to me to be, it may, like the refearches for the philofopher's 

 Hone, be highly ufeful by fuggefting new experiments. 



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