Dr. Fitton's Notes on the History of Eriglish Geology. 445 



Another class of authors, still less deserving of specific notice 

 than the topographers, and fortunately of much more frequent 

 appearance during the seventeenth and the beginning of the last 

 centuries, than of later years, is composed of those who min- 

 gled Scriptural history with speculative or ideal geology, and 

 weakly fancied that they maintained the authority of the Scrip- 

 tures, and promoted the cause of truth, — by seeking for traces 

 of the Deluge in all the appearances of the earth, and warping 

 into accordance with the Mosaic account of the Creation, their 

 own scanty and inaccurate notions of the structure of the globe. 

 Of these writers the greater number appear to have forgotten 

 the danger which attended their presumptuous attempts ; since 

 if they had succeeded in establishing the connexion of their own 

 views with the sacred writings, the fall of their opinions (and, 

 one after another, they have all passed away,) must necessarily 

 have been accompanied by that of Scriptural authority. An 

 instance of the ill effects of this mode of proceeding has been 

 already noticed, in the history of organic remains ; and it would 

 be easy to multiply quotations, which might perhaps surprise 

 our readers of the present day*. There are, however, some 

 very honourable exceptions to these general remarks. The 

 works more especially of Catcottf , in the last century, and 

 more recently of Mr.Townsend|, whom we have already men- 

 tioned, afford in many instances correct views of the operations 

 of nature, and valuable statements of fact,' notwithstanding 

 their erroneous notions, as to the objects of geology, and the 

 mode of conducting inquiry in this as in every other depart- 

 ment of scientific research. 



In that part of Mr. Catcott's work which goes to demon- 

 strate, to use the language of Cuvier, ' that the earth has been 

 * recently overwhelmed by the waters of a transient deluge,' 

 there are many excellent observations : but in attempting to 

 include the solid strata within the range of that operation, and 

 ascribing to it the presence of the fossils which they contain, 

 the author shares the fate of all those who before him had in- 

 dulged in similar speculations: and his Diagram, — ' repre- 

 ' senting the internal structure of the terraqueous globe, from 

 ' the centre to the circumference,' is the result of suppositions 

 not less visionary than those of Burnett, Hutchinson, and 



* Some furtlier reference to the writings alliKled to in the text, will be 

 found in an article by the author of the present paper, in the Edinburgh 

 Review of Dr. IJitckiand's ' Retiquue DUuviance-J Edin. Rev., October 182.3, 

 vol. xxxix. p. 19fi. 



\ (atcott, ' A Treatise on the Deluge.' Svo, London, 17C1. 



I Townsend, ' Vindication of Moses,' &c. 18K3. 



