126 An Essay on Rents. {Fres. 
and the top of those in the Isle of Man, is the Jower part of one of 
the last-mentioned undulations. There would be a time when the 
undulations in the surface between the solid and fluid matter were so 
great, that the latter matter would retire into hollows, and stand just 
as high as the highest parts of the former matter. In the continuva- 
tion of the process, the elevated parts of the solid earth-stone would 
gradually extend above the surface of the earth-stone’s fluid matter ; 
because the hod/ows in the surface of the solid matter would increase 
in size, and the still fluid matter retire into them. In this way the 
fluid portions of the compact layer got below the higher parts of the 
grained layer ; and till the consolidating process reached the general 
surface of the compact layer, the fluid matter kept sinking, and its 
surface retiring downwards, and leaving a part of this layer solid 
and united to the grained layer ; but when nearly the whole of the 
compact layer had obtained the solid form, its surface assumed 
throughout a series of small undulations, whose dimensions con- 
tinued to increase till the matter had reached its present degree of 
solidity. ;' 
2. Of Concrete Lime-stone. 
This matter comprehends all those grained and compact lime- 
stones and chalk which are not stratified ; and includes most of the 
primitive, transition, and floetz, lime-stone and chalk, formations 
of Werner. . 
The matter of the lime-stone while in a fluid state completely 
covered the earth-stone. When the compact layer had assumed the 
solid form, the consolidation of the lime-stone layer commenced. 
But previous to this event the fluid calcareous matter had first sunk 
gradually below the tops of the grained layer, and then below the 
higher parts of the compact layer. As the inequalities in the surface 
of the earth-stone are very great, the universal continuity of the 
lime-stone was destroyed, and parts of it, while still fluid, were 
kept back in hollows; and parts arrested by the consolidating 
process as they were retiring downwards. It is, therefore, found 
either bending round hollows of the earth-stone, or only lying in 
parts on one of the sides of such hollows. We are now come nearly 
to the conclusion. Had there been no inequality in the contraction 
of the earth’s matter after it had assumed the solid state, the 
grained and compact earth-stone layers, and the lime-stone layer, 
would have been'completely hid by a stratum of water equal in 
quantity to the present ocean, which last may be considered the 
remains of that fluid from which the lime-stone proceeded ; by the 
same rule the stratified formations could not have existed. But as 
the unequal sinking produced hollows, and exposed the earth-stone 
and lime-stone to view, and as the ocean retired into, and was 
again forced out of, these hollows to its present situation, by the 
slow and progressive accumulation of stratified formations, this un- 
equal sinking of course gave rise to a variety of formations. Now 
ee ere 
