Werner according to Lycll. 255 



was a ruling object of ambition in the minds of his pupils, to 

 confirm the generalizations of their great master, and to disco- 

 ver, in the most distant parts of the globe, his " universal for- 

 mations," which he supposed had been each in succession simul- 

 taneously precipitated over the whole earth, from a common 

 menstruum or chaotic fluid * Unfortunately, the limited dis- 

 trict examined by the Saxon professor was no type of the world, 

 nor even of Europe : and, what was still more deplorable, when 

 the ingenuity of his scholars had tortured phenomena of distant 

 countries, and even of another hemisphere, in conformity with 

 his theoretical standard, it was discovered that " the master" had 

 misinterpreted many of the appearances in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of Freyberg f . 



(8.) Werner accordmg to MacCuIloc7i.—U Werner's system 

 first appeared about 1787, its subsequent modifications prevents 

 us from knowing with whom its several portions now rest. While 

 his audiences diffused it with the blind zeal of rehgious secta- 

 ries, his lectures became the endless treatises of all who sought 

 the fame of geological authorship. But to entertain an opinion 

 is not to form one ; and hence the student, influenced by the 

 weight of numbers, should recollect that but one voice speaks 

 through all these organs. If, therefore, the leader should be 

 charged with the faults of his followers, it is the sect which is 

 the object of examination, while it is an idle office to settle the 

 contending claims to ignorance. 



In an original fluid earth, the materials of all minerals were 



tions, and it is probable similar (besides many still to be discovered) rela- 

 tions will be found in other quarters of the globe, and the globe may possibly 

 have the same general structure throughout — Edit. 



• Werner, when lecturing, used to say, The various stratijicd rocks 

 have been deposited from water ; some from a state of chemical solution ; 

 others from a state of mechanical suspension ; and a third set appear to be 

 partly of a chemical, partly of a mechanical nature. The mechanical matter 

 he derived from the previously existing strata : in regard to the chemical 

 matter, he conjectured that it made its appearance in the universal ocean at 

 different times, but whether it came from Lelotv or from above he knew not.— 

 Edit. 



t The accuracy of this statement may be questioned ; allowing it to be 

 correct to the extent here stated, is there any thing deplorable in misinter- 

 preting, if IVcrncr Im miiinlerprctcd, a few geological phenomena. 



