808 ON THE TRANSMUTATION OF ROCKS, &c. 



affords ; and I have since accompanied my friend Mr. Smalley 

 to a spot which Captain Stanley and myself examined together 

 and which he approved. 



Whether in the progress of ages any such transmutation as 

 has been discussed to-night, will be detected in the Flagstaff-hill, 

 and which we have seen to exist elsewhere, no one can foresee. 

 But if the views now expressed of the processes by which the trans- 

 mutation of rocks is produced, viz., slowly acting forces and moderate 

 temperatures during long periods of time, be correct, we shall come 

 to the conclusion to which we are brought by many other inde- 

 pendent lines of reasoning, and which close observers have not 

 failed to enunciate, that, though the epochs during which the 

 earth has existed is but a moment compared with the eternity of 

 its Creator, it is still, in comparison with the past period of man's 

 existence, of inconceivable antiquity. 



P.S. Such persons as feel an interest in the subject discussed in the pre- 

 ceding remarks, will be amply gratified by studying the researches of M. 

 Delesse, in his "Etudes sur le Metamorphisme des Roches (Paris, 1858,)" a 

 work full of instructive details. 



In the "Bulletin de la Societe Geoloyique de France" 2nde Serie, Tomes 

 i, iii, iv, vi, will be found much valuable matter on the same and allied 

 topics in papers and notes by MM. Virlet d' Aoust, Neree Boubee, Durocher, 

 and others. M. le Vicomts d' Archiac has also some useful observations 

 (see Tom. v. p. 3) in his admirable work " Histoire des Progres de la Geologie 

 (1853.)" These are the principal authorities, with the exception of Herr 

 Scheerer, to whom I have looked for foreign facts on which to base a 

 comparison of my Australian examples. The circumstances under which 

 this paper has been committed to the press, have hindered more particular 

 references in place. 



W. B. C. 



St. Leonard's, 



11th April, 1866. 



