^S6 



The next liberty Mr. Play/air takes with our fa&s is more guard- 

 ed, and espreffed with hypothetic caution. " If (fays he) a torrent 

 " of melted matter were poured in among the ftrata, by a force 

 " whicfi at the fame time broke up and difordered thefe ftrata." 



No doubt fuch a torrent muft have broke up and difordered 

 our ftrata, and therefore Mr. rlayfair infinuates (for I cannot now 

 fay he aflerts) that our ftrata have been fo broke up and difordered. 

 Here too the facts are direftly contrary ; for in the place where 

 the ftones with fhells and impreflions are found, there is no dif- 

 order nor breaking up. The ftrata of ftlicious bafalt, and of admitted 

 bafalt or -jjhyn Jione, are all fteadily parallel, and of uniform inclina- 

 tion, to wit, a flight dip to the eaftward, from which, upon the 

 authority of Mr. Playfair himfelf, we may fairly conclude that no 

 fuch torrent as he fuppofes, was ever injefted among our ftrata. 



Mr. Playfair brings us to the peninfula of Portrufh, with a con- 

 fiderable degree of triumph. He could not have chofen a more 

 unfortunate fpot for his theory, as it abounds v/ith facls irrecon- 

 eileable to the operations he fuppofes to have taken place. 



On the main, where the ftrata are deep and accumulated upon 

 each other to ftupendous heights. Nature (as I have fliewn early 

 in this Memoir) changes her materials, and her mode of arranging 

 them, every two or three miles ; but on the eaft fide of Portrufh 

 peninfula, where the ftrata are thin, flie changes her ftile almoft 

 every hundred yards, paffing from accumulations of alternate ftrata 

 to an accumulation of filicious bafalt, then to a fimilar one of what 

 Mr. Playfair admits to be undoubted bafalt in regular ftrata ; fuch 

 fudden changes in materials and arrangement, by no means refera- 

 ble the effed of a mighry caufe acting deep in the bowels of the 

 earth, and forcing up torrents of liquid lava with irrefiftible vio- 

 lence. 



I have already dwelt fulHciently on the very different opinioa 

 maintained by Mr. Playfair and me, as to the ftratification of bafalt. 



I muft 



