GEOLOGICAL DYNAMICS. 



CHAPTER V. 

 INORGANIC GEOLOGICAL DYNAMICS. 



Sect. 1. Necessity and Object of a Science of 

 Geological Dynamics. 



WHEN the structure and arrangement which 

 men observed in the materials of the earth 

 instigated them to speculate concerning the past 

 changes and revolutions by which such results had 

 been produced, they at first supposed themselves 

 sufficiently able to judge what would be the effects 

 of any of the obvious agents of change, as water or 

 volcanic fire. It did not at once occur to them to 

 suspect, that their common and extemporaneous 

 judgment on such points was far from sufficient for 

 sound knowledge ; they did not foresee that they 

 must create a special science, whose object should 

 be to estimate the general laws and effects of as- 

 sumed causes, before they could pronounce whether 

 such causes had actually produced the particular 

 facts which their survey of the earth had disclosed 

 to them. 



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