Professor Geikie on the " Pitchstone " of Eskdale. 227 



remains been found. It was accordingly inferred that they 

 had been formed before the appearance of plants and animals. 

 As the sea still retired and additional land came to be exposed, 

 mechanical deposits were necessarily mingled with those of 

 a chemical nature. These strata received the name of " tran- 

 sition " rocks, and were regarded by Werner as having been 

 " deposited during the passage or transition of the earth from 

 its chaotic to its habitable state " * and as marking the grada- 

 tion from the primitive purely chemical depositions to the 

 more recent mechanical accumulations of gravel, sand, and 

 mud. It was at the epoch of their formation that plant and 

 animal life made its entry upon the earth. The transition 

 strata, necessarily occupying ground lower than the mountain- 

 ous protuberances of the primitive masses, were by the con- 

 tinued subsidence of the ocean in part uncovered, and being 

 consequently attacked by the waves, served to supi3ly some 

 of the detritus which was now spread over the sea floor to 

 form what were called the " floetz " rocks. These, consisting 

 partly of chemical, partly of mechanical deposits, extended 

 over the whole globe as "universal formations." They in- 

 cluded what were called the " Floetz-traps," "greenstones," 

 basalts, porphyries, and other rocks which Hutton and his 

 school in this country, and Desmarest, Montlosier, Voight, 

 Dolomieu, and many others on the Continent had insisted 

 were of igneous origin. These crystalline masses were 

 regarded by the Wernerians as chemical depositions " formed 

 by a deluge, that is, by a sudden rising and retiring of the 

 waters of the globe." i* 



These crude notions taking their rise within the narrow 

 confines of Saxony, bear witness to the limited experience of 

 their founder, who with his keen powers of observation would 

 assuredly have vastly modified them had it been his good 

 fortune to enlarge his views by extended travel. His dicta, 

 expressive of authoritative certainty, were implicitly accepted 

 by his followers, not as mere hypothesis, but as indisputable 

 fact. Seldom in modern times has there been such uncondi- 

 tional acceptance of a master's i])se dixit by his followers. The 



* Jameson: "System of Mineralogy," vol. iii., 1808, p. 145. 

 t Jameson, op. cit. 



