OF THE EARTH. 469 



scarcely have been derived from any other system of 

 strata than that of the primary ones. 



I must now remark of the " transition" rocks of 

 Geologists, that as this term was founded on a false 

 and impossible theory of the deposition of rocks, 

 and as the nature and boundaries of this class have 

 never yet been defined or proved, I have not given it 

 a place in this work, among the facts of Geology. 

 Yet if it should really be established by future and 

 better observations, I shall owe the science an apo- 

 logy to which I cannot yet consider any geologist 

 entitled ; and the views just held out must be modi- 

 fied accordingly, by the addition of another condition 

 of the earth and another revolution. On the pro- 

 bable nature of this, it would be idle to speculate 

 until proofs of the existence of such a series, distinct 

 from the primary, and intermediate between it and 

 the lowest of the secondary, shall be produced, and 

 till it shall be shown what relative position it bears 

 to the former. 



We have now therefore a new ocean and a new 

 earth ; a state in which we are sure that there were 

 sea and land ; an ocean receiving the ruins which 

 form the lowest of the secondary strata, brought into 

 it by the flow of the rivers, and mountains, from 

 which these rivers flowed ; consisting of the very 

 rocks which form the primary mountains of the pre- 

 sent globe. In that new ocean lived the animals 

 which are now imbedded in the most antient of the 

 secondary strata ; but our proofs are imperfect when 

 we try to discover whether that dry land was also in- 

 habited. No remains of land animals are found in 

 the lowest red sandstone, or in the mountain lime- 

 stone which succeeds it ; but the same evidences of a 

 vegetable world exist, as in the case of the primary 



