168 Mr. Farey's Reply to Mr. Bakewell’s Leiter. 
happening to have fallen under the notice of. a learned 
‘Hattonian Illustrator, he (as T have heen told by a friend), 
in the anonymous Review above mentioned, a en having 
bestowed. extravagant encomiums on a Section across part 
of the Basin of Paris (as it has improperly been called) 
which is nevertheless much confused, and so distorted, as to 
be of little or no use for explaining the district, owing to 
a scale for heights, 35 times as large as the scale for lengths, 
aving been used in constructing it! and not being co- 
loured, although intended so to be, took occasion to cen- 
sure this Section of mine, across the south part of England, 
merely because of its * stage-coach obgervations ;” ! for- 
getting, that he was unnecessarily comparing the elaborate 
production of two or more pensidned indivuduals ‘of a 
foreign Court, splendidly published at public expense, with 
the professedly first and rough sketch (gratuitously cireti~ 
lated) of an individual made at his own cost : and forgetting 
also, that before publicly and,unnecessarily disparaging the 
productions of a country-man, in favour of those of ‘fo+ 
reigners, it’ was incumbent on him to have shown, that the 
former were incorrect, and not calculated to answer their 
intended purpose : a task in which he might perhaps have 
felt somewhat puzzled: however, I venture here to invite 
him, and all other contemnérs of « staze-coach Geology, 
to make the trial, and publish their observations. 
But to return to Mr. B.—I beg to assure him, that the 
colour of Rocks bas been among the least important. of 
my “ stage-coach observations,’’ although it may have 
happeued, that I have written a good deal about yellow 
Limestone and Red Marl,” (p. 124): and that I and others 
of the Smithian School, can see also, in this mode of 
examining nature,” the form, not only of individual Rocks 
and Hills, but of the Country; the surtace soil, whether 
composed in general of alluvium foreign to the district, 
or of the rubble and decomposed substance of the strata 
beneath; in which discriminations, the kind and state of 
the spontaneous and cultivated vegetable productions, are 
important helps: in short, from the combination of a coms 
petent knowledge of rural affairs in general, with practical 
Mining knowledge, we are able to discern the positions and 
successions of the strata, except in rare instances, even in 
thus hastily crossing a district.) tho 
The travelling Notes, for instance, which I made on first 
crossing from London to Brighton, fully agree with, and 
are almost sufficient for making the Section, which rey 
m A sulted 
