8 INTRODUCTION. 



. destruc'tfon. As his wisdom and power can levy a tribute of praise 

 from the disorders of the moral world, the passions and crimes of 

 men, which he over-rules for the purposes of his glory and grace; 

 even so, in the material world, he can make the very ruin and wreck 

 ,of nature to shew forth his praise. 



It has been remarked, that the rocks which form the solid part 

 of our globe, are not placed indiscriminately, but in a certain order. 

 This, however, holds true, only in respect of general analogy ; for, 

 in descending to particulars, we find every region, and every district, 

 to have its own series of rocks; nor have any two places, remote 

 from each other, been yet discovered, in which the order of succes- 

 sion, or even the structure or composition of the beds, is exactly the 

 same. And, though the order of the strata in some parts of Europe, 

 appears to be subject to some general rules, it yet remains to be 

 determined, how far these rules may extend to other quarters of the 

 world. If Werner discovered a particular series of rocks in the 

 Brocken mountain in Germany, it does not follow, that we shall find 

 the same series in other mountains. If chalk constitvite the upper- 

 most bed in our district, and in several other parts of Europe, we 

 cannot infer, that the same, or a similar bed, is, or has beeUj the 

 highest, in Africa, Asia, or America. And, if granite hold the low- 

 est place in the series, wherever the strata have yet been explored, 

 we have no right to affirm, that other rocks still lower cannot be here- 

 after discovered. Let us not bewilder ourselves, nor mislead others, 

 in assigning to nature imaginary laws of our own constructing, but 

 advance in our inquiries after truth, by the sure path of patient 

 investigation. 



Perhaps there is no part of the world more interesting to a geo- 

 logist than the British Isles ; and no part has been more attentively 

 surveyed. But, although much has been done, for ascertaining the 

 character and succession of the British rocks, much remains to be 



