INTRODUCTION, XV 



stone, in the Tyrolese, might perhaps be explained in this 

 manner, and we are at least certain that the cause exists. 

 But it is far from the intention of this work to propose or 

 support any theory ; and these remarks must only be regarded 

 as a few scattered hints which may interest the reader. 



Pini, in what he calls a new theory of the earth, supposes Pini's system. 

 a nucleus surrounded with a fluid zone, which contained the 

 elements of the various substances j and he imagines the 

 effects and variations to have been very prompt and sudden, 

 owing to the extreme rapidity of the rotation of the earth. 

 He argues for a formation wholly aqueous ; but his chief new 

 fact seems to be a granitic mountain at Gana, in Austrian 

 Lombardy, which is throughout full of cavities, a few inches 

 distant from each other, and lined with crystals of quartz and 

 felspar*. 



The chief features of De Luc's new system of geology De Luc's, 

 seem to be the following. He supposes that during the 

 deluge the former continents disappeared ,- but this is clearly 

 contrary to the Mosaic account of paradise, and the whole- 

 scriptural narrative, which represents the land as stable and 

 unalterable. That successive catastrophes affected the beds 

 of our continents, even while they were rising under the 

 waters by chemical precipitations, being occasioned by caverns 

 which formed under them. That valleys, lakes, abrupt pre^ 

 cipices, existed at the birth of our continents, in consequence 

 of those catastrophes by which the beds were ruined. That 

 stony masses and gravel, which are scattered in such great 

 quantities upon the continents, are also original features, 

 and do not arise from currents ; the flints proceeding from 

 beds of chalk dissolved ; and the gravel, as well as the large 

 blocks, caused by the attrition of fragments, have been ex- 

 pelled from the interior by expansive fluids, during the sub- 

 sidence of the beds, and dispersed at the same time at the 

 bottom of the sea. That the precipices towards the sea have 

 not been produced by the sea itself, but are original features, 



* See the Opuscoli Scelti, torn. xiii. Milan 1790, 4to. p, 369, 379. 



