310 Supplement to the Comparative Estimate 



After the unqualified approbation which we have expressed in 

 our 30th Number, of Mr. Buckland's Reliquiae Diluviance, we 

 shall hardly be suspected of any wish to undervalue that most able 

 and interesting work, nor, from the equally decided commendation 

 which we bestowed on the Comparative Estimate, in our 29th Num- 

 ber, can it be expected that we shall abandon our author, or hold 

 his arguments for the strict and literal interpretation of the sacred 

 text, by the united agencies of historical, moral, and physical evi- 

 dence, in lighter estimation now than we did then. — On the con- 

 trary, the Supplement has strengthened our conviction of their force 

 and justice, and proportionately exalted our opinion, high as it 

 was before, of the talents and right-mindedness of the individual 

 who urges them. Nor is this feeling at all incompatible with our 

 admiration of the author of the Reliquice Diluviance and his de- 

 lightful book, which for accuracy of observation, clearness, and 

 minuteness of detail, stands unrivalled. But our object is not to 

 draw a comparison between the two works, or the abilities of their 

 respective authors, (for both we have the highest respect,) but to 

 lay before our readers, as briefly as possible, the grounds on which 

 Mr. Penn endeavours to shew the perfect accordance of the phe- 

 nomena detailed in the Reliquice Diluviance, with the views he 

 has promulgated in his Comparative Estimate. 



It was suggested in that work, that the animal remains dis- 

 covered buried singly in strata of gravel and clay, and those found 

 in multitudinous masses in cavities of rocks, may very probably have 

 rcsultedyrowi one and the same revolution in different localities, and 

 therefore that it is unnecessary, and unphilosophical to resort to dif- 

 ferent revolutions to account for the diversity. This suggestion, at 

 which the time it was made, was founded on general probabilities, for 

 want of more minute information, is now confirmed by the important 

 and extensive means, recently supplied to us, of comparing the cha- 

 racter and nature of the rocks, in which, in this and other countries, 

 the innumerable mingled fragments of tropical animals occur, and 

 which reveal to us the great geological fact, that all those rocks belong 

 to one and the same class, viz., limestone, whose texture and com- 

 position bear unequivocal evidence, by the intimate and multitudi- 

 nous incorporation into their substances, of marine organic remains, 

 that they were not indurated, but soft and plastic, when they rested 

 in enormous masses, on the bed of the primitive ocean. " We may 

 conclude," says D'Aubuisson, " from these incorporated evidences, 

 that there are few facts in natural history established on such 

 strong proofs as the aqueous fluidity of secondary soils, properly 

 so called." Thus we recognise a period, in which the substance of 

 limestone existed, not hard and consolidated above the waters, but 

 soft and yielding within them. This idea of the original soft state 

 of secondary limestone is strengthened by the analogous pheno- 

 menon mentioned by Saussure as being daily exhibited by the 

 sands on the border of the sea near Messina, which, though still 



