OF THE ORGANIC FOSSILS. 453 



Again, the strata now forming out of the Scottish 

 primary mountains cannot be the same that are in the 

 act of being produced by the calcareous lands of Eng- 

 land. Yet both contain the same shell fishes. In a 

 future world, Geologists who may reason in the same 

 manner, will prove dissimilar strata to be the 

 same, through similar fossils. There is no meaning in 

 such philosophy as this : and that which is the history 

 of the present alluvia is the history of the consolidated 

 strata. There is no order of succession in living colo- 

 nies, in modern seas; there cannot have been such an 

 order in past ones, except under utter assumptions, 

 and therefore strata ought not to be identifiable in 

 this manner. And the sum of this priori reasoning, 

 further is, that, to prove what is asserted, every species 

 or genus should have succeeded in a definite order, and 

 changed with each stratum : and this also, not within 

 a limited space only, but over half or the whole of the 

 world. 



Every supposition necessary to this theory of iden- 

 tification is unfounded or improbable; and therefore 

 such a test ought not to exist. It can be admitted 

 within limited distances and deposits, such as Eng- 

 land, or similar tracts, but not further; least of all, to 

 the extent asserted. Nor does it exist as a fact : the 

 experience confirms the priori reasoning. A limestone 

 following the red marl occurs in England and France 

 and Spain and Italy: it is the lias by position; if 

 England is to be the standard for all Europe. It 

 contains many different fossils in these several places ; 

 and the same is true of any other stratum or series. 

 All this is well known to Geologists, yet they seem to 

 persist in their system. Echini, turbines, tellinae, and 

 chamae are found from primary slate up to chalk: 

 they certainly do not indentify those strata. It is the 



