AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 229 



rounded pebbles have been produced, and we are 

 not now reduced to the strait which the learned 

 author of " Natural Theology," Dr. Paley, was, 

 when in the first chapter of his book he says, " In 

 crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against 

 a stone, and were asked how the stone came there, 

 [ might possibly answer, that for anything I knew 

 to the contrary, it had lain there for ever ; nor 

 would it perhaps be very easy to show the absur- 

 dity of this answer." 



At the present day, to most geologists the stone 

 on the heath would tell its own simple story. If 

 its sides were angular, and rocks of a similar 

 character were located in the neighbourhood, it 

 would be pretty clear that it was a native of the 

 district, and had not travelled from afar. But if 

 its angles had all been removed, and it was a 

 rounded pebble of a description of rock not found 

 in situ within many miles, then would it tell of 

 its travel by flood, and how it had undergone the 

 buffeting of the waves, and the jostling of its 

 neighbour stones. Should, however, it be com- 

 posed of iron, nickel and cobalt, in the proportions 

 usually met with in meteorites, it would be supposed 

 to have come tJirough the atmosphere, but from 

 whence it is difticult to say. 



