136 Bibliographical Notices. 



potism to the license of revolution. Let us hope, that now the cycle 

 of superficiality is complete — that the disease has run its course, and 

 that we are in a manner vaccinated for cosmogonies ; and having once 

 for all put in our most decided protest against both the spirit and the 

 substance of the work under consideration, we proceed to perform 

 our remaining duty to the reader, namely ; to set before him without 

 malice or extenuation, ' The Dynamical Theory of the Formation of 

 the Earth.' And first let the author speak his own estimate of his 

 work : " AVe finally beheve that scientific research has attained a state 

 of perfection sufiicient to enable us, by judiciously blending its truths 

 with those of revelation, to produce such a system of cosmogancy 

 (cosmogony ?) as shall entirely satisfy the human mind, as shall 

 meet all its requirements, by convincing the understanding while it 

 invigorates our faith in the word of God." These are large promises. 

 Let the reader judge by what follows whether they be fulfilled or not. 



Mr. Ritchie's theory is to the following effect : — 



In the period indicated by the Mosaic expression, " In the begin- 

 ning," the earth moved in its orbit round the sun, but was without 

 diurnal rotation, vdthout atmosphere and without light ; its surface 

 was everywhere a plain, and deeply covered by the waters of an ocean 

 composed of water containing " silex, alumina, hme, magnesia, ba- 

 rytes, strontites, zirconia, glucina, potash, soda, and ammonia — 

 oxides of various metals, especially iron and manganese, carbonic 

 and fluoric acids, hydrogen and oxygen, with muriatic, sulphuric, 

 and most probably nitric acid" (p. 452. vol. i.) "in chemical combi- 

 nation." 



Notwithstanding all these ingredients, this ocean "possessed all 

 the characters of fresh water as far as the nourishment of its vegeta- 

 tion was concerned ;" and covering its bottom there was a luxuriant 

 growth of those plants which now constitute the coal, and these, ac- 

 cording to our author, were all acotyledonous. 



There were no land animals, nor indeed any which breathed and 

 had the faculty of locomotion in its proper sense (none " moving by 

 aeriated blood" is our author's favourite expression). 



Now the plants continually decomposed carbonic acid, and set free 

 oxygen into the water of the primaeval ocean. The animals conti- 

 nually separated carbonate of lime from the same menstruum. As they 

 died and putrefied, they gave forth ammonia. What became of the 

 ammonia and oxygen is not stated ; they must have existed in some 

 marvellous chemical state not at present understood. 



Will it be believed that the origin of all these extraordinary and 

 baseless assumptions lies in the first chapter of Genesis 1 thus : — 



" Darkness was upon the face of the deep." " And the spirit of God 

 moved upon the surface of the waters :" therefore the earth was dark 

 and covered with water : 



" And God said. Let there be a finnanent in the midst of the waters, 

 and let it divide the waters from the waters." 



But as the firmament was not made till after the period called " In 

 the beginning," there could then have been no atmosphere : 



