108 Biographical Sketch of the [Dec. 



been admitted at Oxford : and, it having; been thought advisable 

 that the summer before his residence in College should be spent 

 in travel, Mr. Clarke was desired to undertake the tour of Scot- 

 land with him, and the plan was carried into execution without 

 delay. 



This journey, which was begun in the summer, and concluded 

 in the autumn of 1797, furnishes considerable extracts for Mr. 

 Otter's work. " Mr. Clarke's journal," he observes, "is very 

 full and particular, and evidently drawn up with a view to the 

 publication of it by himself. At several subsequent periods of 

 his life, preparations were, made by him for this purpose ; and so 

 late as the year 1820, an advertisement was drawn up, announc- 

 ing it to the public, and a part of the manuscript was actually 

 transcribed for the press. Beyond this, however, no farther 

 step was ever taken towards the completion of the work, and in 

 the pressure of other labours, which occupied him to the last 

 moment of his life, abundant reason might be found for the. 

 delay ; but in truth, there was another obstacle, which requires 

 some explanation, because, whatever share it may have had 

 either in delaying or preventing the publication of the journal 

 by himself, it certainly led to a restriction, which must diminish 

 the interest of the extracts, when selected by another. This 

 obstacle was the unsettled nature of his opinions respecting 

 certain facts, connected with geology, accidentally a prominent 

 feature in the tour. In the course of his Italian travels, his 

 attention was frequently and specially directed to the two great 

 theories, which at that time divided, and have since continued 

 to divide, the judgment of philosophers, in every part of Europe. 

 To this subject allusions are often made in his Italian journal, 

 as well as in his letters after his return ; and the interest thus 

 excited in his mind, although afterward apparently suspended, 

 was revived with much greater force, when the journey to Scot- 

 land was proposed to him. It was not that he attached an 

 undue importance to any opinions he might form in that early 

 stage of his knowledge ; but he was eager to engage in the 

 inquiries to which the contsoversy had given rise; and having 

 had frequent occasion during his residence in Naples, to notice 

 the observations of Scotch gentlemen, relative to the resem- 

 blance which they affirmed to exist between the minerals of the 

 Western Islands and the productions of Vesuvius, he was 

 willing to believe, that by a stricter scrutiny of this tract than it 

 had hitherto received, he might be able to ascertain more cor- 

 rectly the nature and extent of this resemblance, with its proper 

 bearing upon the controversy ; and he was the more sanguine in 

 this hope, because after the particular attention which he had 

 paid for nearly two years, to the operations of subterraneous 

 lire, both in a state of activity in Vesuvius, and in the traces of 

 its influence among scenes no longer subject to its immediate 



