370 MacCulloch's System of Geology. 



a similar mistake in attempting the whole, and in a spirit ill 

 adapted to soften the ruggedness of the real deformities of the 

 work. With that propensity we so often see to view that side 

 of a subject as all-important, of which our previous knowledge 

 enables us to form a just idea, and to consider every other 

 point of view as insignificant, Dr MacCulloch uncompromis- 

 ingly upholds every tittle of the supremacy of mineral charac- 

 ter, and with a levity which is quite characteristic of his style, 

 throws aside, as utterly worthless, the whole theory of fossil 

 remains, as indicative of the strata. He exalts the primitive 

 rocks to an unmeasured degree of importance over the secon- 

 dary and tertiary in the very spirit, of Werner, whom, never- 

 theless, he takes every opportunity to discredit and trample on, 

 and to whom he bears the farther resemblance of drawing almost 

 all his illustrations from a country, limited both in absolute 

 and geological extent, — namely, Scotland. It is not wonderful 

 that the Doctor should choose this country for the Saxony of his 

 " System." There are few countries which ever repaid so well 

 the labour of geological research, and few observations have 

 ever been published in such a variety of form as Dr MacCul- 

 loch's. It must be unnecessary even to refer to a certain 

 Parliamentary return upon a " Mineralogical Survey, 11 to prove 

 that modern alchemy has achieved the transmutation of even 

 the basest minerals into gold, — that the philosopher's stone may 

 be discovered by the adept in rocks of every age : — 



" Tollit humo Saxum ; Saxum quoque palluit auro. 



Contigit et glebam ; contactu gleba potenti 



Massa fit." Ov. 



With regard to the volumes before us, we have neither space 

 nor inclination to enter into any analysis of them ; and they pos- 

 sess few either of the charms of style, the merit of novelty, or 

 of any other kind, to tempt us. The work is, to speak geologi- 

 cally, a conglomerate ; — not, however, composed of the varied 

 materials which have so long been added as insulated groups 

 of facts to the science, — not gleaned with fidelity and judg- 

 ment from the works of predecessors and contemporaries, and 

 set in a basis which should at once compact and add lustre to 

 the whole ; but it is a conglomerate of the triturated and time- 

 worn fragments of the Doctor's own works, and the " basis or 

 ground" is of the same sombre hue with the morsels which it 



