of Werner, and those of Mr. Smith. ,37 



better acquainted with the results than with the principles on 

 which Mr. Smith has proceeded in his researches j otherwise he 

 certainly would not have considered them to be the same as 

 those of Werner. It is true that the one supposes his formations 

 are laid over one another in a determinate order, and the other 

 has observed the same in the series of British strata; but the 

 law of succession, of Werner, is purely hypothetical ; that of Mr. 

 Smith is the result of multiplied observations, and has been 

 found to be correct as far as relates to the British strata. 



Werner's law of succession, which he pretended was universal, 

 evidently flowed from his hypothesis of the formation of the earth ; 

 an hypothesis which sets both reason and experience at defiance. 

 The progress of incjuiry would, however, have very soon shown 

 its fallacy in the hands of any other person than Werner. But 

 he saw tliat his law \vas not the law of Nature, — various strata 

 were found to succeed one another in a different order from what 

 he had assigned them in his hypothesis : this iiowever was easily 

 remedied by creating a distinction without a difference ; and the 

 formation was termed a nciver, or an older formation, as the 

 case required. Thus, we have vew granite and otd granite, and 

 the same of other sul)stances : — besides, in the class of forma- 

 tions which Werner calls transition, there appears to be no re- 

 gular order of succession whatever; for Dr. Thomson says, " they 

 all alternate with each other, sometimes one Sometimes another 

 being undermost*." But even the classes of Werner do not al- 

 ways succeed one another in the order which Werner assigned 

 them ; granite being sometimes found above strata which con- 

 tain petrifactions f. 



Also, there is nothing more evident than that the Wernerians 

 are without any fixt principles of tracing the structure of the 

 earth; for they are always in doubt and diliicultv — even in those 

 places u-here they constantly reside, and v.'here the tracing the 

 strata presents no difficulty whatever X '• they write as mineralo- 

 gists, but certainly not as geologists ; — they say a formation oc- 

 curs in this or that country, (seldom pointing out the place with 

 the least precision,) and that it h probably of the primitive, trans- 

 ition, or flcetz class of formations — almost always as if the rock 

 occurred in detached patches, — seldom describing it as a con- 

 tinued stratum ; and, instead of attempting to show the struc- 

 ture of the country (on which this far-famed hypothesis is 

 founded) by maps and sections, the Wernerians content them- 

 selves with giving a string of technical terms connected by ex- 

 pressions which are scarcely to be understood §. 



* System of Chemistry, iii. 558. ed. 1817- f Thomson's Sy.Uem 



of ('hem. iii. 558. J Professor Jamieson's Elements of Geognosy 



iii. 2U.^. § Sec the Description of the Hartz. Reg. Elem. Geog. iii. 71 



C 3 How 



