Principles of Geology. 3 



ence which embraces the contemplation of so many sources of hu- 

 man enjoyment. Let us, then, be spared that question which is 

 clamorously repeated to the authors of new discoveries, " What is 

 the use of it?" To those who direct the thousands that labor in the 

 mine or the coal pit, I refer the question. What is the use of the 

 principles which have extended our control over the subterranean 

 riches of our country ? In the extension of mines and collieries, and 

 in the construction of roads and canals, we experience the value of a 

 science, which, though noiseless in its career, and with no pretension 

 in its appearance, lends strong support to national wealth and individ- 

 ual happiness ; — a science which, under many discouragements, has 

 gradually uplifted and spread itself around, till there is perhaps, no 

 corner of the earth which contains not a man desirous of investiga- 

 ting its physical history. 



Geology, as a system of observation and induction, is decidedly 

 of modern origin. Some of the more obvious facts connected with 

 it, could not, indeed, be overlooked in the most inattentive age. 

 Such are the sinking of rivers into the ground, and their gliding along 

 subterranean channels, of which such elegant descriptions ornament 

 the poems of antiquity. Nor did the ancients pass, without a mo- 

 mentary reflection, those fossil shells which are inclosed in rocks, 

 and buried in mountains, far removed from the sea. The lines of 

 Ovid are known to every one ; and the simple conclusion he draws 

 of the dry land having once been sea,* has served as the basis of 

 many later hypotheses which contain no more information. The 

 Pythagorean doctrine of the intermutations of the substance, and re- 

 peated revolutions in the nature of all created things, of which this 

 is urged as an example, has not a little resemblance to some of Dr. 

 Hutton's speculations on cosmogony, whilst in Ovid's description of 

 chaos, we really seem to behold the germ of a Wernerian theory. 



We may pass the centuries of darkness which succeeded the 

 splendid era of Rome, and fix our attention on times more approach- 

 ing our own. The discoveries of Newton, in celestial mechanics, 

 introduced a new order of inquirers concerning the history of the 

 earth ; but, unhappily, few of them followed the steps of their illus- 

 trious leader. The " theories," as they were arrogantly termed, of 



vidi factas ex sequoie tei ras, 



Kt procul a peJago ccnchaE jacueie maiinse. 



