130 Analysis, §-c. of Cordier’s Essay upon the 
nomena, and the weakness of intensity in their progress ; if every 
thing in the interior is at work, as every thing is on the surface, 
we arrive at a most important result; since the remark is. also 
things; which alters and displaces them, insensibly and without 
return; and which forces them along with it through an immen- 
or new purposes which the human understanding is 
incompetent to fathom, but of. which it may feel proud to have 
exhibited the necessity.” 
Such is the substance of M. Cordier’s most interesting 
paper. The Neptunian hypothesis was in articulo mortis 
before he wrote; it is now consigned to the resting place 
“of all the Capulets,” never to be revived. ' 
Many difficulties remain, on Cordier’s hypothesis, which 
he will have to account for. If the cooling of the mass be- 
n with the sienites, next to the transition series, thence to 
the limestone and talcose rocks, then to the c ay slate, mica 
schist, and gneiss, why are not these rocks found composing — 
with the sienite nearest the transition. The period of 
the conversion of steam into oceans and_rivers, the average 
depth of the ocean hardly yet settled by astronomers, the 
probability of earthquakes being either the effect of 
the explosion of oxygen an ydrogen from decom- 
Water, and other circumstances, yet remain to 
be uned. When I have leisure to compare the notions 
of M. Cordier with those of Mr. Scrope, you may perhaps 
hear again from _ Your obedient servant, 
- a Tuomas Cooper. 
ns 
‘The ancients entertained an opinion that all things were in a perpetuat 
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