4 ITS BELATION TO NATIONAL PROSPEKITY. 



enable us to supply. If (as has recently been remarked *) 

 the granite of the Scottish mountains had extended as far 

 as the South Downs of Kent and Sussex ; or if the chalk of 

 our southern shores had reached to the Grampian hills, our 

 social and commercial condition would have presented a 

 dreary contrast to the scene of energy, enterprise, and 

 wealth, which it now presents. If the granite had prevailed 

 throughout the entire island, we should have been placed in a 

 country, picturesque, it is true, in its general outline, abound- 

 ing in the alternations of mountain and of vale ; of hill and 

 of glen ; relieved by the torrent, the waterfall, and the lake ; 

 and embellished with a profuse, though monotonous vegeta- 

 tion ; while the rocks beneath would have aiforded occasional 

 supplies of precious metals, and stores of tin, copper, silver, 

 and gold. But the climate would have been severe; its 

 productions limited and few ; its population scanty, scattered, 

 and poor ; and we should have continued a race of miners 

 and mountaineers. On the other hand, had the chalk ex- 

 tended over the whole country, we should have possessed 

 extensive pastures and sheep-walks, and should have become 

 a community of shepherds, grazing our flocks on the hills, 

 and cultivating a confined and partial vegetation in the valleys 

 and fissures of the chalk. In neither case could we have 

 attained that prosperity and eminence which we now so 

 happily enjoy, since we should have been destitute of those 

 natural advantages which constitute the basis of our national 

 prosperity and power; and which, from the chalk of our 

 southern shores to the granitic formations of the north, 

 from the South Downs of Sussex to the Grampian hills, 

 and from the clay lands of the east to the metallic districts 

 of the west, from the fields of Essex to the mines of 

 Cornwall, yield a variety of benefits calculated not only to 

 enrich ourselves, but to render us the dispensers of blessings 

 to regions the most remote. The relation of commercial 

 and social prosperity to geological situation has been forcibly 

 illustrated by Dr. Buckland, who, in his Bridgewater Trea- 

 tise, furnishes an outline of the chief physical features of 

 our island, and calls attention to the striking fact, that no 



* By Leonard Homer, Esq., at the Anniversary of the Geological 

 Society, 1841. 



