iv Opponents of Huttoris Doctrines 195 



instructive example of that class of facts. After reaching 

 the spot, Sir James pointed out the great disturbance that 

 had taken place at the junction, and particularly called 

 the attention of the doctor to a piece of sandstone which 

 had been whirled up during the convulsion and enclosed 

 in the trap. When Sir James had finished his lecture, 

 the doctor did not attempt to explain the facts before him 

 on any principle of his own, nor did he recur to the 

 shallow evasion of regarding the enclosed sandstone as 

 contemporaneous with the trap ; but he burst out into the 

 strongest expressions of contemptuous surprise that a 

 theory of the earth should be founded on such small and 

 trivial appearances! He had been accustomed, he said, 

 to look at Nature in her grandest aspects, and to trace her 

 hand in the gigantic cliffs of the Irish coast ; and he could 

 not conceive how opinions thus formed could be shaken 

 by such minute irregularities as those which had been 

 shown to him. The two Huttonian philosophers were 

 confounded ; and, if we recollect rightly, the weight of 

 an acre of florin and the number of bullocks it would 

 feed formed the remaining subjects of conversation." 1 



It is not needful to follow into further detail the history 

 of the opposition encountered by the Huttonian theory of 

 the earth. Some of the bitterest antagonists of Hutton 

 hailed from Ireland. Besides Eichardson, with his fossili- 

 ferous basalt, there was Kirwan, President of the Eoyal 

 Irish Academy, whose ungenerous attacks stung Hutton 

 into the preparation of his larger treatise. In England 

 and on the Continent another determined opponent was 

 found in the versatile and prolific De Luc. But though 



1 Edinburgh Review >, No. Ixv. 1837, p. 9. 



