ON THEORIES OF THE EARTH. 393 



those who abounded in materials and those who pos- 

 sessed none ; while if he knows what a theory means, 

 he will think an ingenious hypothesis more enter- 

 taining than a clumsy one. 



If Saussure, however, is rather a disclaimer of theory 

 than a professed theorist, he shows considerable vacil- 

 lations of opinion, with marks""of unwilling conviction 

 against a favourite system. The land was originally 

 covered by the sea, but the strata were broken by 

 some interior revolution, forming abysses and eleva- 

 tions ; while the waters, rushing into the former, ex- 

 cavated vallies and deposited alluvia. Thus, the strata, 

 formed by precipitation, were elevated ; while, in 

 another place, he imagines them to have been dis- 

 posed as they now are, by crystallization. Promising 

 to state, in future, the result of twelve more years of 

 thought and labour, " he dies and makes no sign." 

 His opportunities and labours are known: so is his re- 

 putation : let he who can now value him, judge of his 

 merits. I will not criticise him : but the justice due 

 to others, demands that he should be weighed. It is 

 plain, however, that he once adopted the essential part 

 of a " Plutonic" system : that term which, with its op- 

 ponent, has made the bitterest of enemies, even of those 

 who did not understand the subjects in dispute. The 

 evil spirit must ever find vent in something. 



If Werner's system first appeared about 1787, its 

 subsequent modifications prevent us from knowing 

 with whom its several portions now rest. While his 

 audiences diffused it with the blind zeal of religious 

 sectaries, his lectures became the endless treatises of 

 all who sought the fame of geological authorship. 

 But, to entertain an opinion is not to form one : and 

 hence the student, influenced by the weight of num- 

 bers, should recollect that but one voice speaks through 



