316 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 



Taking for data the appearances of the Earth's crust m 

 a narrow district of Germany ; observing the constant or- 

 der of superposition of strata, and their respective physical 

 characters ; Werner drew the inference that strata of hke 

 characters succeeded each other in Hke order over the en- 

 tire surface of the Earth. And seeing, from the laminated 

 structure of many formations and the organic remains con- 

 tained in others, that they were sedimentary ; he further 

 inferred that these universal strata had been in succession 

 precipitated from a chaotic menstruum which once cov- 

 ered our pknet. Thus, on a very incomplete acquaintance 

 with a thousandth part of the Earth's crust, he based a 

 sweeping generalization applying to the whole of it. This 

 Neptunist hypothesis, mark, borne out though it seemed to 

 be by the most conspicuous surrounding facts, was quite 

 imtenable if analyzed. That a universal chaotic menstraum 

 should deposit, one after another, numerous sharply-defined 

 strata, differing from each other in composition, is incom- 

 prehensible. That the strata so deposited should contain 

 the remains of plants and animals, which could not have 

 lived under the supposed conditions, is still more incom- 

 prehensible. Physically absurd, however, as was this hypo- 

 thesis, it recognized, though under a distorted form, one 

 of the great agencies of geological change — that of water. 

 It served also to express the fact that the formations of the 

 Earth's crust stand in some kind of order. Further, it did 

 a little towards supplying a nomenclature, without which 

 much progress was impossible. Lastly, it furnished a stand- 

 ard with which successions of strata in various regions 

 could be compared, the differences noted, and the actual 

 sections tabulated. It was the first provisional generaliza- 

 tion ; and was useful, if not indispensable, as a step to truer 

 ones. 



Following this rude conception, which ascribed geologi- 

 cal phenomena to one agency, acting during one primeval 



