lil-2 MacCulloch's System of Geology. 



the following passages. " If, to controvert, be termed contro- 

 versy, I am sorry for what I could not avoid. I neither envy 

 the taste nor the feelings that delight in this bane of modern 

 science and literature : under which, they who can contribute 

 nothing, oeek for fame, by depreciating what they even rarely 

 understand. Never has there been a science, unless it be physic, 

 so encumbered with rubbish as geology : it was impossible to 

 move a single step without clearing it away. He who desired 

 to build on the solid rock of Nature could not but attempt to 

 remove the ruins that obscured it. And whoever seeks to 

 ' make his understanding a repository of truth for his own 

 sake, rather than the warehouse of other men's false and incon- 

 clusive reasonings,' 1 will follow the same plan. 



" Of the arrangement of this work I have little to say. I 

 have referred to my Classification of Rocks as the grammar of 

 this science, while avoiding, as much as possible, all collision 

 between them. If the order of the subjects does not prove 

 satisfactory, I will gladly hear of a better; yet it must be 

 from one who has bestowed equal thought on an unexception- 

 able arrangement. If there are repetitions, and if references 

 to things not yet examined, I shall be pleased to see any plan 

 that will remove this blot from one place, without leaving an 

 equal or worse one somewhere else." — Pref- p. vii. 



" I am sensible that the sketch of a Theory of the Earth re- 

 quires a volume, instead of a Chapter ; and further, that it can 

 scarcely be understood without that series of drawings, as a 

 guide through a perfect labyrinth of reflections, without which 

 I could not even have written it. It must remain for others 

 to demand such a volume: and if it is not less true that illus- 

 trations would have been most useful to the whole work, as 

 they had been prepared for it, there are few who do not know 

 where the obstruction lies, as it is they alone who can remove 

 it." — Pref. p. viii. 



This is really too bad, in a thirty-two shilling book, without 

 (as we have already said) even the semblance of a wood-cut, or 

 illustration of any kind : but we can heartily subscribe to the 

 assertion, that the " Theory of the Earth" is greatly in want 

 of some such elucidation. Would not the India Company's 

 100 copies have paid for a few diagrams ? 



Take as a specimen of the application of science the follow- 



