Geological Societij. 311 



rized hypothesis, that all the successive formations of the old schistose 

 rocks were called into being simultaneously by a fiat of creative 

 power anterior to the existence of creatures possessing life : nor 

 shall I urge, that among these primitive creations of the author, 

 are mountain masses of rock formed by mechanical degradation from 

 rocks which preceded them, and beds of organic remains, — placed 



there, if we may believe his system, in mere mockery of our senses; 



neither shall I detain you by dwelling upon the errors and contra- 

 dictions which are scattered through the early pages of his volume. 

 On this part of the "New System" all criticism is uncalled for here j 

 for it soars far above us and our lowly contemplations. Its charac- 

 ter is written, and its very physiognomy appears in that dignified 

 and oracular censure which he himself has quoted from the works 

 of Bacon : " Tanto magis hsec vanitas inhibenda venit et coercenda, 

 quia ex divinorum et humanorum male-sana admixtione, non so- 

 lum educitur philosophia phantastica, sed etiam religio haeretica." 

 "This vanity merits castigation and reproof the more, as from the 

 mischievous admixture of divine and human things, there is com- 

 pounded at once a fantastical philosophy and an heretical reli- 

 gion." 



All these things. Gentlemen, I shall pass over : but the author has 

 stood forward as the popular expositor of the present state of secon- 

 dary geology ; of that very portion of our science, which has for 

 so many years employed the best efforts of our Society. This part 

 of the work appears not to contain one original fact, or the result 

 of one original investigation : and of this we do not complain. We 

 have, however, a right to look to it for information, which shall not 

 repeat exploded errors ; but shall make a near approach to the level 

 of recent observations. But is this the case in the work before us ? 

 Unquestionably not. All the old errors in the arrangement of the 

 English strata, between the chalk and the oolites, are unaccountably 

 repeated ; — errors which have been corrected since 1824, in our 

 Transactions, in English and Scotch philosophical journals, and in 

 various independent works of natural history ; and have excited, du- 

 ring the last five or six years, more discussions in this room than 

 have arisen out of any other part of secondary geology. Other anti- 

 quated errors, of like kind, have found a place of refuge in the pages 

 of this " New System." 



But let us pass over what may be, perhaps, only regarded as errors 

 of omission, and see how the author has employed the materials 

 before him. The best part of his narrative is made up of successive 

 extracts, often taken word for word, yet without the marks of quota- 

 tion, from various well-known works on geology. Many of these 

 extracts, although in themselves admirable, appear in the book be- 

 fore us but as disjointed fragments, in the arrangement of which 

 the author has but ill performed the humble duties of a compiler. 

 For in the chapter on secondary formations, we find enormous faults 

 and dislocations, of which there is neither any written record, nor 

 any archetype in the book of Nature. Thus wc find the lias some- 

 times below the oolites, sometimes between the oolites and the 



green- 



