130 Analysis, ^c. of Cordter's Essay upon the 



nomena, and the weakness of intensity in their progress ; if every 

 thing' in the interior is at work, as everything is on the surtbce^ 

 we arrive at a most important result ; since the remark is also 

 apj>iicable to the whole pianet;iry system; and thus we obtain a 

 proof of the most powerful kind, of the existence of the great 

 principle of vniversal instubility, which was announced or per- 

 ceived by Newton and other philosophers.* A pr nciple supe- 

 rior to all those great rules which we have been accustomed to 

 regard as constituting exclusively the Laws of N-.^ture. By the 

 aid of this principle, we look beyond the most distant periodici- 

 ties, which have hitherto been regarded as the most perfect por- 

 tions of our solar system. A principle that seems to govern the 

 universe to its minutest atom; which modifies incessantly all 

 things; which alters and displaces them, insensibly and without 

 return ; and which forces them along with it through an immen- 

 sity of ages, lor new purposes which the human understanding is 

 incompetent to fathom, but of which it may feel proud to have 

 exhibited the necessity," 



Such is the substance of M. Cordier's most interesting 

 paper. The Neptunian hypothesis was in arliculo mortis 

 before he wrote ; it is now consigned to the resting place 

 " of all the Capulets," never to be revived. 



Many difficulties remain, on Cordier's hypothesis, which 

 he will have to account for. If the cooling of the mass be- 

 gan with the sienites, next to the transition series, thence to 

 the limestone and lalcose rocks, then to the clay slate, mica 

 schist, and gneiss, why are not these rocks found composing 

 the highest peaks and eminences, instead of the oldest gran- 

 ite, and porphyry ? though indeed the latter is found in com- 

 pany with the sienite nearest the transition. The period of 

 the conversion of steam into oceans and rivers, the average 

 depth of the ocean hardly yet settled by astronomers, ifie 

 great probability of earthquakes being either the effect of 

 steam, or the explosion of oxygen and hydrogen from decom- 

 posed water, and many other circumstances, yet remain to 

 be explained. When I have leisure to compare the notions 

 of M. Cordier with those of Mr. Scrope, you may perhaps 

 hear again from Your obedient servant, 



Thomas Cooper. 



* The ancients eatertained an opinion that all things were in a perpetual 

 flux. — Reviewer. 



