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Ch. V.] 



THE PKO GUESS OF GEOLOGY. 



101 



masses, lie mi 



the regions of water and of air ; and if this being should busy 

 himself in investigating the structure of the globe, he might 

 frame theories the exact converse of those usually adopted 

 by human philosophers. He might infer that the stratified 

 rocks, containing shells and other organic remains, were the 

 oldest of created things, belonging to some original and nas- 

 cent state of the planet. ' Of these 

 ' whether they consist of loose incoherent sand, soft clay, or 

 solid stone, none have been formed in modern times. Every 

 year some part of them are broken and shattered by earth- 

 quakes, or melted by volcanic fire ; and when they cool down 

 slowly from a state of fusion, they assume a new and more 

 crystalline form, no longer exhibiting that stratified disposi- 

 tion and those curious impressions and fantastic markings, 

 by which they were previously characterised. This process 

 cannot have been carried on for an indefinite time, for in that 

 case all the stratified rocks would long ere this have been 

 fused and crystallised. It is therefore probable that the 

 whole planet once consisted of these mysterious and curiously 

 bedded formations at a time when the volcanic fire had not 

 yet been brought into activity. Since that period there seems 

 to have been a gradual development of heat ; and this aug- 



mentation 



till the whole 



globe 



shall be in a state of fluidity, or shall consist, in those parts 

 which are not melted, of volcanic and crystalline rocks.' 

 Such might be the system of the Gnome at the very time 



that the followers of Leibnitz, reasoning on what they saw 

 on the outer surface, might be teaching the opposite doctrine 

 of gradual refrigeration, and averring that the earth had be- 



comet 



become 



_ 



The tenets of the schools of 



the nether and of the upper world would be directly opposed 

 to each other, for both would partake of the prejudices ine- 



class 



suiting trom the continual contemplation 

 phenomena to the exclusion of another. 



Man 



decomposition 



may 



deposits ; but he cannot witness the reconversion of the sedi- 



•ystallin 



He 



