1822.] 
creation, which are afforded by the or- 
ganized remains (altogether, I believe, 
of extinct species), which in such 
myriads interlay these strata; because, 
whoever with unprejudiced eyes will 
extensively examine these remains in 
their native repositories, and examine 
also the substance and condition of 
the strata enveloping them, must see 
abundant proofs that the beings lived 
and died where their remains now lie: 
and that the strata imbedding them, 
instead of seeming to be the debris or 
ruins, or much less the crystallized re- 
vival, of any previously existing or 
dissolyed rocks, the facts apparent 
most evidently, as I contend, shew 
these strata to have been created suc- 
cessively, and intermediately, with the 
several races of beings which they 
have successively entombed; each at 
the termination of a period, of no short 
duration, in which each one, or some- 
times several together of such races of 
beings, had lived, had taken food, and 
fulfilled all the intentions of “ nature’s 
God” in creating them. 
These intentions of the Deity it 
would be presumptuous in me to un- 
derstand fully; but perhaps one, and 
not the least important of these inten- 
tions may have been, by these organic 
remains to enable us to confute those 
who would, on the one hand, contend 
for the formation of the earth out of 
self-existent matter, arranging itself 
according to necessarily-existing laws, 
as of crystallization, for instance ; and, 
on the other hand, those who would, 
chiefly on their own sophistications of 
the text of Moses, contend for his days 
of work or his deluge, having been 
the era or the means of forming the 
vastseries of strata, which, in accord- 
ance with these notions, they call se- 
condary formations. 
I cannot imagine that Mr. Cumber- 
Tand would push his crystallization 
theory so far, as to contend that the 
present, or any other imaginable law 
of crystallization, could have supplied 
the place of creative power and de- 
Sign, infinitely beneficent, in the first 
giving organization and life to these 
early races of beings ; and, if he be not 
disposed to go this length, why not 
admit, with me, the strata themselves 
to have originated in the same special 
and unexplainable way: secing that 
those undeyiating laws of nature which 
have been appointed by the Deity, and 
been in action ever since his glorious 
work of creation ended, with the 
Mr. Farey on Mr. Cumberland’s Theory. 
301 
placing of mankind upon the earth, 
whether he may chuse to denominate 
such laws, ‘expansion, compression, 
crystallization, conglomeration, attrac- 
tion, cohesion, or gravitation,” or 
whether they be called deposition, ag- 
gregation, or what not, such never in 
reality could, either singly or jointly, 
better account for the formation of the 
strata, than they could account for the 
formation and life of the organic beings 
contemporary with them. If any one, 
admitting the divine origin of the uni- 
verse, should, in support of the views 
in which he may have been educated, 
object that the matter of the strata was 
not thus contemporaneously and suc- 
cessively created with the early orga- 
nic beings, “in the beginning” as 
Moses has it, I would respectfully ask 
of such objectors to censider and say 
when? how? in what state? or for 
what purpose? the matter of the uni- 
verse was created? other than, at the 
times I have indicated, and for the 
purposes which the same is now seen 
to answer in the earth. And further 
to consider, seriously, whether all spe- 
culations beyond or antecedent to;this, 
be not idle, and perhaps mischievous? 
The recent work of Mr. Mantell, 
which you have justly commended in 
p- 446 of your last volume, and the 
more recent work of Mr. Parkington, 
contain an admirable body of local 
facts regarding the organic remains, 
and their imbedding strata, and such 
rational deductions: from those facts, 
as I am happy in the opportunity of 
here recommending to’ the notice of 
your readers, in contrast with the rant, 
for it deserves no better epithet, in 
which Mr. C. hasindulged, towards the 
end of his letter, regarding ‘‘ impiety 
to nature’s God,” if not only ‘the 
whole of the revelation by Moses,” 
but the mistranslations and absurd ad- 
ditions, also, of the inventors of sacred 
theories, mosaical or bible geologies, 
&c. are not received ‘with implicit 
credit.” 
Before I conclude, I beg to express 
my dissent from the doctrine adopted 
by Mr. Cumberland, as to arcoliths or 
stones falling from the atmosphere ; 
referring this origin to the imaginary 
existence of ‘felspar, mica, and quartz,” 
in the atmosphere; and assuming, 
that these “rush towards each other 
with vehement affection,” prior to the 
fall of an arcolith; instead of believ- 
ing our own eyes, in seeing the stony 
masses which fall, expiosively thrown 
