MacCulloclVs System of Geology. 371 



encloses. There is hardly one of the thousand pages in which 

 Dr MacCulloch does not implicitly or explicitly appear; and 

 the Account of the Western Isles of Scotland, the Classifica- 

 tion of Rocks, with his scattered papers in the Geological Trans- 

 actions, (which by the way he never quotes but to mention his 

 own memoirs, unless in terms of contempt,) down to the very 

 Description of Hammers in the Appendix, and other glean- 

 ings from his contributions to periodical works : — these are 

 the staple commodities of the book, which are now piled toge- 

 ther with so little arrangement, that the Doctor openly profes- 

 ses to express different opinions in his second volume from 

 what are contained in the first ; and the very arrangement of 

 the chapters, (like dislocated strata,) assumes a different con- 

 figuration in the body of the work, and in the table of con- 

 tents. 



We are at a loss where to quote from : The preface, per- 

 haps, presents as good an idea of the style and pretensions of 

 the work, as any part of it. We shall therefore make one or 

 two brief extracts. 



Of all announcements by way of recommendation for a work 

 on a daily widening science, the following is the strangest we 

 have met with : " This work was written in 1821 (!) and it 

 has therefore slept even beyond the Horatian period." The 

 succeeding paragraph throws completely into the shade any- 

 thing we have attempted to say respecting the neglect of the 

 physical department of geology. " I have waited ten years, 

 in the announced hope that some better man would stand 

 forward in the breach, the representative of Geological science 

 as it now is: endeavouring also to tempt others to this peri- 

 lous honour, by the occasional publication of certain por- 

 tions. I do not see that it has been superseded ; nor that 

 there are any hopes from a longer delay. I did also expect 

 that time would have brought material improvements, through 

 the efforts of the present multitude of labourers. I grieve to 

 say that it has scarcely received a valuable addition from this 

 source, and not a single fundamental one. The evidences of 

 Geology have indeed been multiplied ; yet through identical 

 facts only : since I do not perceive that a new one has been ad- 

 ded to the science. This ought not to have been/" — l'ref. p. v. 

 The modest author's idea of his work may be gathered from 



