Dr. Fitton's Notes on the Ilhtory of JLnglish Geology. 27S 



* stone, that were found on eacli side the Channel, though at 



* the distance of twenty miles.' He went accordingly, to 

 Watchet, and examined the situation of the beds there, which 

 he has very well described ; and he subsequently traced the pro- 

 gress of the lias, through Monmouthshire and the intermediate 

 counties, as far north as Newark in Nottinghamshire ; a course 

 which corresponds precisely with the results of more recent 

 investigation. He mentions likewise, that Mr. Cavendish and 

 Dr. Blagden had assured him of its existence at Lyme, on the 

 coast of Dorsetshire; which is the more remarkable, as a con- 

 siderable mass of other strata intervenes, upon the surface, 

 between that place and those which Mr. Smeaton had ex- 

 amined himself. It is not however improbable, that Smealon's 

 inquiries upon this subject may have been connected with 

 some previous communication with Mr. Michell; since he 

 appears to have received from that gentleman, the list of the 

 strata to which we have already referred, before the publication 

 of his own work on the Lighthouse. 



It is difficult to trace the history of Werner's doctrines ; 

 the most important of his tenets having been delivered only 

 in the form of lectures ; while the writings of his pupils, who 

 confessedly borrowed from their master, are generally di- 

 luted with large additions of their own. In England espe- 

 cially, a correct view of Werner's geological system was not 

 obtained till long after its promulgation : it was not indeed ac- 

 cessible to persons unacquainted with the German language, 

 till the publication of Mr. Jameson's volume of Geognosj', in 

 1808 ; and was very imperfectly appreciated for a considerable 

 time afterwards ; the controversy between the Wernerian and 

 Huttonian schools, having called off the attention of those en- 

 gaged in the study of Geology, to the speculative department 

 of their subject, from the more solid occupation of inquiry into 

 the actual structure of the globe. The Kilrze Klassifikation 

 of Werner, a brief but valuable arrangement and description 

 of rocks, published by himself in 1787*, has no allusion nor 

 hint at the doctrine of Formations, the teriti not once occur- 

 ring in that work. Nor was the distinction of the transi- 

 tion from the flcetz class introduced into his arrangement 

 for some years afterwards ; grey-wacke being placed, in the 

 list of 1787, among the ^a?/~ sand-stones. The opinions of 

 Werner, as to the origin of the basaltic rocks, were formed 

 after his examination of the Scheibenberg in 1787f. The 



• Kurzc Klassifikation imd licschrcilmng den verschiedenen Gcdirgsaiicn. 

 Von A. G. Werner, Ike. Dresden, 17H7. 4to, pp. 2b. 

 t Bergiiiiinnisches Journal, 17^8, vol. ii. p. 845. 



Third Series. Vol. 1. No. 4. Oct. 1832. 2 N 



