•452 Queries and Observations relating to 



^ary, for vending the surplus of corn and improved live stock, 

 which this south-eastern coast of the county began to yield, in- 

 stead of having nothing to spare but a few half-starved cattle, 

 bred in the mountains in the interior. 

 I am, sir, 



Your obedient servant, 

 12, Upper Crown Street, Westminster, JoHN FaREY, Sen. 



June 13, 1815. 



LXXVII. Qtieries and Observations relating to the Formation 

 of the Superficial Part of the Globe. By Robert Bake- 

 well*, Esq. 



In the present chapter I propose to offer some remarks and 

 queries respecting the formation of the rocks and strata that 

 compose the superficial covering of the globe, and to state the 

 inferences which appear to me deducible from the contempla- 

 tion of existing phaenomena. I beg, however, to be distinctly 

 understood as offering these observations to the consideration of 

 geologists, without any desire to obtain their assent, further 

 than may be warranted by the evidence of facts, or by rational 

 probability. Whatever may be thought of the queries here pro- 

 posed, they cannot, I trust, prejudice any candid mind against 

 tlie preceding parts of the volume. If philosophers, instead of 

 fabricating hypotheses, had proposed their speculations in the 

 form of queries, in imitation of Newton (in his Optics, book 3), 

 they would have rendered a more essential service to science. Thus 

 relieved from tlie labour of defending their own systems, they 

 would have been more free to follow truth wherever the light of 

 evidence and induction niight lead them. Many important dis- 

 coveries might have been anticipated, which could not be brought 

 forward as parts of a system, because the connecting links in the 

 chain of discm'crv v/ere still wanting. Such was the anticipation 

 of the inflammable nature of the diamond, by Newton. When 

 any science is just advancing beyond its infant state, the mode 

 of proposing our of>inion?, in the form of queries, is most de- 

 sirable ; and I trust this will be a sufficient apology for adopting 

 it in the following pages. 



The geologist endeavours to make himself acquainted witli 

 the various beds and strata that form the crust of the globe ; and, 

 if possible, to discover by what process they were formed, as 

 veil as to trace the changes they have subsequently undergone. 



* From the concluding ehnpter of his second edition of the Introduction 

 to Geology, just puLlislied, 



The 



