440 ON THE GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS 



river of northern Asia, almost from the Black sea to 

 that of Kamtschatka ; yet being nearly limited to the 

 alluvia of the plains. To conceive that a single tor- 

 rent, or any succession of torrents capable of covering 

 a breadth of four thousand miles, should have left these 

 remains as they are now found, and so perfect, should 

 have even left the carcasses as they are, is for those 

 who see no difficulties when the inventions are their 

 own. Such visions, warring against all common 

 sense as well as philosophy, Deserve no answer. How 

 Pallas could have supposed them to have been thus 

 transported from southern climates, he was himself 

 bound to explain, since no one can do it for him. If 

 De Luc's theory was intelligible to himself, I know 

 not who else can understand it; though it did once 

 meet a supporter who must at least have been inconsi- 

 derate in thus adopting it. This country consisted* 

 De Luc says, of islands and seas intermixed, in a con- 

 stant state of revolution of level and condition: and 

 thus, in some manner, every thing is solved. Cer- 

 tainly, geologists have often deserved the ridicule 

 which they have so frequently experienced. It is use- 

 less to inquire of the causes of such revolutions as 

 this, when there is not a shadow of evidence as to the 

 facts, and when it is not supported by anything that 

 we know of the earth. But it is especially unfortunate 

 for this philosophy, that the elevated alluvia of Italy 

 should have been explained in the same manner. It 

 is difficult to conjecture what ideas are formed before 

 such reasonings and conclusions. These are Werner's 

 ever tractable oceans, under a new shape. He who 

 has said that the very name Geology excited ridicule, 

 should not have forgotten where the retort might fall 

 with equal or greater justice, and that there were more 

 than one fabricator of cabinet theories. The 



