t2S 



■v 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE 



their fiftions, to a crifis which never has exiftecl 

 but once, and which never can return. Br 

 Hutton, on the other hand, has guided his in- 

 eftigation by the philofophical maxim, Caufam 



naturat 



fc 



€t affiduain 



queer 



H 



non raravi et 



theory, accordingly, prefent 



with a fyfcem of wife and provident economy, 

 where the fame inftruments are continually em- 

 ployed, and where the decay and renovation of 



foffils b 

 different 



emg ca 



regi 



icH oil at the fame time in the 

 Hotted to them, preferv 



the earth the conditions eflential for the fupp 



of animal and 



getabl 



We have been 



long accuftomed to admire that beautiful 

 trivance in nature. 



nature, by which the water of the 

 ocean, drawn up in vapour by the atmofphere, im- 

 parts, in its defcent, fertility to the earth, and be- 



comes the great caufe of 



and of life 



but now we find, that this vapour not only ferti- 

 lizes, but creates the foil; prepares it from the fo- 

 lid rock, and, after employing it in the great ope- 

 rations of the furflice, carries it back into the re- 

 gions where all its mineral charaders are renew- 



of moifture through 

 the air, is a prime mover, not only in the annual 

 ceffion of the feafons, but in the great geolo- 



produc- 



d 



Th 



the 



gical cycle, by which the wafle and 



of entire continents is circumfcribed 



Per 



haps a more ftriking viev/ than this, of the wif 



dom 



