On the Geology of Loch Leven. 117 



Gary's window, London seems to occupy the only spot in Britain, 

 perhaps in the world, tliat may be deemed secure against the 

 partial workings of these principles ; and, although not foundetl 

 on a rock, is destined, I hope, to flourish till time shall be no 

 more— 



*' Until til at great and awful day 

 That shall the world in ashes laj'. 

 As David and the Sybils say." 



The terrific effect, however, of these momentous operations 

 of the mineral kingdom cannot be contemplated even at a di- 

 stance without a sensation of the most chilling description, 

 mixed with the awful incertitude of human existence, where 

 immediately exposed to the instantaneous rendings of contend- 

 ing elements ; and the revolutions of nature umst bear with no 

 trifling degree of dread and alarm on the human mind, and make 

 it shrink with conscious nullity from the workings of superior 

 power. Nature recoils and shudders at destruction. 



Much time and labour and efforts of human genius have been 

 more unworthily spent than by the geological philosopher turning 

 the bent of his attention to the wonderful agency of galvanizing 

 nature in all its majesty. — Shakespear says, "All the world's 

 a stage." — I say the world's a galvanic pile, of grand dimensions, 

 having the south pole for its positive, and the north pole for its 

 negative : hence the current of magnetic impetus towards the 

 north ; thence the electric grandeur of the aurora lorealis : and 

 from this may be traced the origin of the island of Iceland, 

 which still continues to be the point of deflagration in the grand 

 trough of primitive formation, and whose volcanic wonders are 

 only the super-workings of the major pile. 



The various volcanos now extinct or silent, as well as those 

 still in turmoil, scattered over the surface of the globe, are mere 

 frieze-workings of minor arrangements of the more recent for- 

 mations, brought into action by what constitutes the base of 

 the Neptunian system, which had its origin as in the days of 

 Heleg, when the earth was torn asunder; when the conti- 

 nents of the east and the west were thrown from their bases like 

 the explosion of a bomb. The terra australis, or positive, falling 

 by its own impetus as well as gravity towards the centre, pre- 

 vented the recoil of the negative and the collapsation of the lon- 

 gitudinal hemispheres ; and into this abyss " the rolling seas to- 

 gctlier flow, and leave the. solid land ;" exposing to elementary 

 action the Neptunian deposits of ages, and leaving them to the 

 free agency of their own galvanic powers. Hence all the vol- 

 oanic modifications on v/hich rests the basis of the Huttonian 

 sy-tcm, and from whence in support of twofold truth are col- 

 H 3 lect 



