f $58 ] 
Letter to the Countess of Gosford, ec. 
‘© WHEN your ladyship was so good as to lend me the pamphlet, 
I return with thanks, and to encourage me to make marginal 
observations, [ expected to have found (what 1 have been lang 
looking for) materials for a controversy with the Neplwmans, or 
as they are now sometimes called. the Wernerians: for Mr. Cu- 
vier is avowedly of that school, and Dr. Jameson was anxious 
to become a missionary, and to come over from Scotland, to 
disseminate in this country the Neptunian heresy. 
*¢ | know he has for some years been speculating on the con- 
version of Ireland, being rather worsted in Scotland, by the su- 
perior energy of his antagonists, supporting theories equally 
weak with his own, and I announced to Dr. Jameson, through a 
friend and pupil of his, that so soon as he published here, any of 
his Neptunian doctrines, I should instantly encounter him. 
*¢ In truth, I take much pleasure in exposing the vain follies of 
world- making gentry, and having sharply -discussed the theories 
of the Huttonian Plutonists, and also of the Volcanists, without 
being able to extort a reply ; I hoped for an opportunity of 
showing, that the quan were just as little entitled to cre- 
dit or belief. 
¢¢ When an Essay on the Theory of the Earth, was published 
by Mr. Cuvier, and edited in Edinburgh by Dr. Jameson, with 
mineralogical notes of his own annexed, I was sure [ had got 
what I wanted, and that [ should find Neptwnian doctrines and 
positions abundantly sufficient for the encounter. 
“¢] was disappointed ; Mr. Cuvier’s Essay, well stuffed-with 
curious and popular topics*, was nothing like a Theory of the 
Earih; but merely intended to give notice of the approach of 
his mighty work on the Fossil bones, found in the calcareous 
quarries near Paris ; and as to Dr. Jameson’s preface, and what 
he calls mineralogical notes; 1 have commented on them in the 
margin, with your ladyship’s permission: for the public these 
notes would be useless without the essay, which I am not at li- 
berty to print. 
“© No general statement in either, of the opinions supported 
by the Neplunians; no history of the formation of the earth, 
* “Tshouid be sorry to say any thing disrespectful of Mr. Cavier. E 
am aware of the infinite labour he has expended, and the ingenuity he has 
exerted upon tlie fossil bones, found in so many calcareous strata; but as 
a geologist or cosmogonist, I am not yet acqdainted with bin, and I hope 
when he shall sustain positions relative to original formation and arrange- 
ment, he will sustainthem from more general and diversified data than 
merely the animal exuviz he has studied so much. 
and 
