THE 



EDINBURGH 

 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



Art. I. — Abstract of Experiments on the Consolidation of the 

 Strata of the Earthy made by Sir James Hall, Bart. 

 F. R. S. Lond. and Edin., with Notices of his former Writ- 

 ings on Geological Subjects. 



We have great pleasure in presenting our readers with an ab- 

 stract of a paper lately read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh 

 by Sir James Hall, on the consolidation of the strata of the 

 earth ; and we recommend their attention to this notice with the 

 more earnestness, because the volume in which the paper will be 

 published at length, may perhaps not appear for some time, 

 and is, moreover, by its nature, little calculated for that rapid 

 and extensive circulation which the ardour of modern curiosi- 

 ty demands. 



Sir James Hall is well known to the scientific world as a 

 strenuous supporter of the Huttonian Theory, and as the 

 philosopher who has most successfully attempted to rest the 

 science of geology on the basis of experiment. As his disco- 

 veries, however, have been published at long intervals, and in 

 a form not very accessible to the generality of readers, we con- 

 ceive we shall be rendering a service to science, by giving a 

 brief sketch of the principal results to which those investi- 

 gations of our ingenious countryman have led. 



Early in 1790, not long after Dr Hutton had announced 

 his Theory of the Earth, Sir James Hall, who had declared 



VOL. III. NO. I. JULY 1825. A 



