summary. s;n 



Summary. — And now, ere we depart from these 

 shores, and bid farewell to scenes so fraught with 

 interest and instruction, I would detain the reader 

 a brief space, and while the data are before us, 

 endeavour to interpret the nature of those physical 

 revolutions of which they afford such unequivocal 

 evidence. It appears, indeed, scarcely possible 

 for the most incurious observer while sitting on 

 these rocks of petrified trees, and surrounded by 

 fossil bones of enormous reptiles, and heaps of 

 river-shells obtained from the neighbouring cliffs, 

 not to speculate on the causes which have given 

 rise to these extraordinary results. For as a 

 profound thinker has justly remarked, " when 

 any natural phenomena are for the first time ob- 

 served, a tendency immediately develops itself in 

 the mind to refer them to something previously 

 known, and bring them within the range of ac- 

 knowledged sequences."* 



It was with a view of inducing a train of thought 

 which should lead the intelligent stranger, un- 

 familiar with the nature of geological evidence, to 

 attempt the interpretation of the appearances pre- 

 sented to his notice, that this excursion was intro- 

 duced by some general remarks on the changes 



* "On the Correlation of Physical Force*;" by W. K. Grove, Esq. 

 M.A. F.R.S. &c London. 1846. 



