1 1 8 The Founders of Geology LECT. 



capacity to whom the theory was propounded, would be 

 how did the deep primitive ocean disappear. Steno, 

 Leibnitz, and other older writers had conjectured that the 

 waters found their way into vast caverns in the earth's 

 interior. Such a conjecture, however, was not suited to 

 the taste of the true Wernerian, who would allow no 

 speculation, but took his stand on a basis of ascertained 

 fact. Well, we may be curious to know how he disposed 

 of the difficulty. Yet we shall search in vain through 

 Wernerian literature for any serious grappling with this 

 obvious, and one would have thought formidable, objection 

 to the doctrine. Werner himself appears to have inclined 

 to the belief that the waters vanished into space. He 

 thought it possible that " one of the celestial bodies which 

 sometimes approach near to the earth may have been able 

 to withdraw a portion of our atmosphere and of our ocean." 1 

 But if once the waters were abstracted, how were they to 

 be brought back again so as to cover all the hills on 

 which his highest Floetz formations were deposited ? 



The most famous of the English followers of Werner, 

 Jameson, honestly asked the question, " What has become 

 of the immense volume of water that once covered and 

 stood so high over the whole earth ? " His answer may be 

 cited as thoroughly characteristic of the mental attitude of 

 a staunch Wernerian. "Although," he says, "we cannot 

 give any very satisfactory answer to this question, it is 

 evident that the theory of the diminution of the water 

 remains equally probable. We may be fully convinced of 

 its truth, and are so, although we may not be able to 

 explain it. To know from observation that a great pheno- 



1 See D'Aubuisson's Gfeognosie, i. p. 414 (1819). 



