

Cn. XIV.] 



THE SEQUENCE OF FORMATIONS. 



323 











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ne 

 lit 

 in 



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18- 



111 



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Portici and Resina, if now covered with ashes, would overlie 

 Herculaneum. An antiquary might possibly be entitled to 

 infer, from the inscriptions on public edifices, that the in- 

 habitants of the inferior and older city were Greeks, and those 

 of the modern towns Italians. But he would reason very 

 hastily if he also concluded from these data, that there had 

 been a sudden change from the Greek to the Italian lan^ua^e 

 in Campania. But if he afterwards found three buried cities, 

 one above the other, the intermediate one being Roman, 

 while, as in the former example, the lowest was Greek and 

 the uppermost Italian, he would then perceive the fallacy of 

 his former opinion, and would begin to suspect that the 

 catastrophes, by which the cities were inhumed, might have 

 no relation whatever to the fluctuations in the language of 

 he inhabitants : and that, as the Roman tongue had evi- 

 dently intervened between the Greek and Italian, so many 



■4- 



other dialects may have been spoken in succession, and the 

 passage from the Greek to the Italian may have been very 

 gradual; some terms growing obsolete, while others were 

 introduced from time to time. 



If this antiquary could have shown that the volcanic 



paroxysms of Vesuvius were so governed as that cities should 



be buried one above the other, just as often as any variation 

 occurred in the language of the inhabitants, then, indeed, the 

 abrupt passage from a Greek to a Roman, and from a Roman 

 to an Italian city, would afford proof of fluctuations no less 

 sudden in the language of the people. 



So, in Geology, if we could assume that it is part of the 

 plan of Nature to preserve, in every region of the globe, an 

 unbroken series of monuments to commemorate the vicissi- 

 tudes of the organic creation, we might infer the sudden ex- 

 tirpation of species, and the simultaneous introduction of 

 others, as often as two formations in contact are found to in- 



But we must shut our eyes 

 to the whole economy of the existing causes, aqueous, igneous, 

 and organic, if we fail to perceive that such is not the plan 

 of Nature. 



I shall now conclude the discussion of a question with 

 which we have been occupied since the beginning of the fifth. 



elude dissimilar organic fossils. 



Y 2 



