VOL. XLIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 33^ 



It is worthy observation, that this hill appears from this not to have been 

 formed as the hills and mountains on the earth in general have been, by a dis- 

 ruption and elevation of the strata by violence from within the earth ; for in that 

 case this stratum of loam must have been elevated with them, and would have 

 been as near the surface, or nearly so, in one part of the hill as in another, and 

 need have been dug for no deeper from the top than from any other part; 

 whereas, on the contrary, it appears to lie flat and level underneath the whole 

 mass of earth, which makes the hill, and was probably the surface, on the first 

 settling of the terrestrial and other matter from among the waters of the deluge. 



The earth, which makes the hill, seems to have been a prodigious mass of 

 matter, rolled along by the irresistible force of that immense body of water, and 

 aftenvards lodged upon it. 



That this might be the case, the immense force of that vast quantity of water, 

 and the ease with which heavy bodies are moved in water, may serve to make 

 probable ; and what the more favours the conjecture is, that the earth which 

 makes the hill is not disposed in such regular pure strata, as the earths settled 

 regularly from the waters always are, but seems evidently a mixed mass, made 

 by the jumbling together of various kinds of clay, &c. which are in some parts of 

 it found pure, though not in whole strata ; and in others irregularly blended in 

 different proportions one with another; which, as the principal matters that 

 compose it are of very different colours, viz. a red and a white clay, is the more 

 apparent. And this is further confirmed by there being none of those common 

 extraneous nodules found lodged in it, which are so frequent in the strata of clay 

 formed by subsidence ; such as the ludus Helmontii, pyritae, &c. These have 

 settled with, and lodged themselves almost every where among those strata ; but 

 it is no wonder there are none of them here, if this hill has been formed as 

 above ; since in the rolling it along, they must naturally have been left behind : 

 and he supposes that the frequency of these bodies in almost all our little clay- 

 pits, and the entire absence of them in the vast quantities of clay that have been 

 dug here, will be esteemed, by all who have looked deeply into these studies, one 

 great argument of the truth of this system ; which may also extend perhaps to 

 many other hills as well as this. 



As the workmen are now obliged to dig this loam at 26 feet deep, instead of 

 about 14, at which depth they long found it, and must hereafter, as they are 

 obliged to ascend the hill, dig it at 38 or 40 feet, the price of it will probably 

 deprive us of it before the vein is exhausted. 



It would be a matter worthy consideration, whether, from examining the 

 parts it is composed of, a succedaneum might not be found for it, by an artificial 

 mixture of similar substances. In order to attempt this, Mr. H., by means of 

 water, disunited its parts, and procured them separate ; and on comparing them 



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