18 Featherstonhaugh^s Geological Report. 



nomenclature can only be the result of much experience, 

 How many of the modern designations will be eventually re- 

 tained we know not; but for the present, independent of their 

 own merits, it appears important that we should adhere as 

 closely as circumstances will admit of it, to the arrangements 

 of British geologists. It is acknowledged, even on the con- 

 tinent of Europe, that their great exertions and learning have 

 raised the science to the consequence it now enjoys ; and as 

 the most valuable records of geological literature are con- 

 tained in our common overspreading language, there seems 

 to be every motive for our present deference to British au- 

 thorities on this subject, and for establishing such harmony of 

 views between the geologists of both hemispheres as will 

 accelerate the period of a permanent classification. For the 

 present all geologists appear to be agreed upon the fact that 

 we have sufficiently advanced in the examination of the struc- 

 ture of various parts of the earth, to perceive that the nu- 

 merous strata which constitute the accessible part of its crust 

 have come into their places in succession to each other, ac- 

 cording to an order which may be said to be invariable, since 

 the exceptions to invariability which occasionally occur can 

 be satisfactorily referred to causes necessary to the constancy 

 of succession of the strata ; for the deposition of the sedi- 

 mentary rocks, or those deposited from water, is referable 

 to the indirect action of those subterranean causes which have 

 either dislocated or broken down the older rocks, from the 

 ruins of which most of them are composed, or have sent to 

 the surface such wide-spread mineral solutions, that we are 

 able to conceive of them only by the extent of their deposites, 

 which could never have been produced by mineral springs 

 upon so contracted a scale as those which exhibit themselves 

 under the present order of things. In other words, the causes 

 which have directly or indirectly produced the deposition of 

 all sedimentary rocks have continued to act at successive 

 periods, sometimes disturbing the older beds, and forming 



