ft A 'Reply io Mr. Plajfair's Refle6lions on 



nials that could endure the feverity of a Siberian winter: 

 p. 475. If I had advanced fuch an opinion, it is iirobal)le 

 he would be equally at a lofs to find an epithet i'ufficiently 

 fevere to Ilignialize it. 



P. 481. It is evident, he favs, that my geological writings 

 are the work of a man who has not feen naiure with his 

 own eves. This, I fuppofe, he infers from the total abfence 

 of obfervations made by mvfclf. It is however pretty no- 

 torious here, that I have viiited, traverfed, and examined, 

 mod of the numerous mountains in this country ; but I 

 thought that in a controvcrfy of this nature, the teliimonies 

 of perfons who had taken no part in it, and who had feen 

 much more than I have, would be more effeftual and con- 

 vincing: it is much eafier to vilify my writings than to an- 

 fwer them. 



No abfurdity appears to Mr. Playfalr fo great as the at- 

 tempt to connect the Mofaic hiftory of the creation of the 

 earth with any philofophical inquiry concerning it: this at- 

 tempt he thinks injurious both to the freedom of philofo- 

 phical inveftigation and to the dignity of religion ; p. 477. 

 The text of Mofes he thinks covered with a veil which can- 

 not be torn oft', and mu(l be confulcred as if it never cxifted : 

 p. 478. Yet in other parts of his work he fecms himfelf 

 fenfible of the extravagance of this aHertion taken in the mod 

 extenfive fenfe, p. 126 ; he feems to limit it to the age^figure^ 

 and motion of the earth; which no geologlft ever pretended 

 to infer from the Mofaic text, in which no mention of them 

 is to be found, no more than they have the explanation of 

 the aft of creation itfelf ; a notion which he alfo unjuftly 

 afcribes to them : but the feries of events which took place 

 after the creation of the earth, are ton plainly mentioned to- 

 be overlooked or mifunderllood : to fay that this account is 

 fo obfcure as not to be intelligible, is tantamount to faying 

 that it is iifelcfs. It was never pretended that Mofes in- 

 tended to write a treatife ot geology, any more than that 

 Greek or Latin hiftdrians intended to give a treatife of afl.ro- 

 nomy from their occafional mention of eclipfes or comets; 

 nor is the genuine philofophical inveftio;atiou of thofe phte- 

 nomena any more impeded in one cafe than in the other: 

 on the contrary, due notice is taken of their accounts by all 

 altrononiers. But there is a fpecies of inveftigation, abufivelv 

 called fhilojhphical, which abftrafts from hiltorical accounts 

 either of the creation or of the flood, as if the accounts 

 given of both by Mofes were unwortliy of credit: to thi$ 

 ©bjetSlion the Huttonian theory is certainly liable, ihougli I 

 9 never 



