lyz ' New Puhlicalions. 



in others, of flow precipitation. The veins of metals feem 

 to have been, for the moft part, formed by depofilion from 

 water among the rifts and amid the ftrata of the fofler rocks. 

 It is in oxyds, in mineralifation by fulphur, in mixture with 

 different earths, and in amalgamation with one another, that 

 all the metals are the moft commonly found. — Such are the 

 moft general fafts flated in this EfTay. 



The twelfth EfTay is wholly contrm-erfial. The late Dr. 

 Hutton, of Edinburgh, had taught, that, from eternity, this 

 globe had continued to pafs through a feries of revolutions, 

 in which the land was ftill deftroyed by external influences, 

 ^nd, in its ruins, propelled into the ocean ; while, on the 

 other hand, internal fires were conftantly elevating new 

 mountains under the ocean, and conglomerating the mate- 

 rials driven into it ; till, at laft, the ocean changed its bed, 

 that which had been dry land became fea, that which had 

 been fea became dry land, and the deftruftion of the new. 

 (■ontinents, and the working of the volcanic fires under the 

 new feas were again renewed. Mr. Kirwan foon attacked 

 this theory as atheiftical and unphilofophical. Dr. Hutton. 

 warmly defended his own fyftem. In this concluding effay, 

 as throughout the preceding parts of the prcfcnt work, Mr. 

 Kirwan, in reply to Dr. Hutton's defence, demonflrates, that 

 igneous fufion cannot have produced thofe phenomena which 

 the Doftor afcribcs to it ; affirms that voicanic fires are com- 

 paratively few and weak in their aftion ; and maintains, that 

 the compofilion of the fuperficial ftrata of our prefent con- 

 tinents is fuch as could not pof]!ibly be formed at the bottom 

 of the fea. ■ 



The notes are few, and only mention feme fafts of which 

 the author was, perhaps, not aware tifi it was too late to 

 infert them in the text of the EfTays. 



This analyfis has enumerated the Icadrng "general facets 

 and pofitions of the prcfcnt work. I'ut thefe are founded 

 upon a wonderfully extenfive induction of highly curious 

 particulnr fafls, for which the reader will do well to examine 

 the book itfclf. 



Thefe Eflays certainly exhibit a more confiftent fcheme of 

 £he fa£ls and analogies of geol()gy than ai>y that had been 



beforer 



