Remarks on Professor Eaton’s Communication. 147 
are grounded on observation, and equally acknowledged 
by all geologists, and that it does not require any hypothesis 
to establish it. For instance, wherever geologists have 
had an opportunity of observing granite and other rocks, 
they have always ores granite to be the lowest, although 
they sometimes alternate. ow who ever thought that it 
implied a love of hg pothesis, to infer from these facts 
tha’ granite was the ‘‘inferior.”’ and other aggregates the 
“superior”? rock, merely because geologists have not 
uncovered every foot of granite in the globe, to see if 
there were not some chink or crevice through which other 
rocks passed beneath it? 
Mr. Eaton objects to the work of these authors, because 
they “ propose that we should begin at the upper surface 
of the earth, and proceed downwards, when we study its 
structure.” It is true pe is the method they adopt as 
the most convenient: but this is not a necessary adjunct 
of their system ; for they might as well commence, for 
aught we can see, with their inferior order, as the Werne- 
rian with his primitive. 
We were not aware, as this communication asserts, that 
Eecorci to the Wernerian scheme, ‘“‘it is suffictent that 
show the series of rocks at the surface in that order of 
succession denominated primitive, transition, and secon- 
dary” If Werner ever taught any thing, he taught that 
his transition class lies above the primitive, his floetz class 
ahove the transition, and his newest floetz class above the 
floetz, threughout their whole extent. And this is neces- 
sarily implied whenever any follower of Werner gives us 
or description of any country according to this 
classification. So we cannot perceive how it is, that the 
ernerian arrangement is any more limited - the surface, 
than that of Mr. Conybeare. 
We objected to the Wernerian names, primitive, 
transition, and floetz, or ae eraney) as tenditig to impress 
the mind of the student with ‘ false, or at least hypotheti- 
cal views,’ and exerting an undesirable influence upon 
his researches. Mr. Eaton regards this objection as ‘ most 
extraordinary,’ because every science has names in it, 
originally founded upon false or hy pothetical views. We 
do indeed regard this as a defect in every science that has 
such names in it; because the student has not only to 
