Werner and Hutton. 279 



century, have given so rapid an imfmlse to the science. 

 In his system he distinguishes, resting on primitive 

 schists, thirteen subformations, which in modern phrase, 

 range between the rothe todte l and the Muschelkalk, 

 each being characterised by a distinctive assemblage of 

 fossils, or peculiarities of marine and fluviatile deposi- 

 tion, the carbonaceous strata being attributed to exotic 

 plants of marshes and forests, the accumulation of 

 which, by means of river floods, has produced coal. 2 As 

 these formations contain remains of land plants and 

 animals, the seas in which the strata were formed must 

 have surrounded an ancient continent, which at an 

 earlier date was also formed of strata after the manner 

 of those he described, and this again by a continent 

 older still, for he taught that the physical phenomena 

 of the earth are constant and unchangeable. 



Eather later, Werner, by his enthusiasm, eloquence, 

 and skill as a mineralogist, also lent some aid to the 

 cause ; but his ignorant and bigoted adherence to the 

 dogma that all rocks are aqueous, did much to retard 

 the advance of truth. His far greater opponent, 

 Hufcton (1788), in his Theory of the Earth, expounded 

 the true doctrine, which may be summed up as fol- 

 lows : 



1st. That, in the known geological history of the 

 world, the course of events has never been disturbed by 

 universal paroxysmal catastrophes, but that the course 

 of change has been similar to that of the existing 

 economy of nature. 



1 The passage is a little obscure : the words rothe todte would 

 seem to imply that the strata are of Permian age, while the state- 

 ment that the strata lie beneath the formation houillere, would 

 bespeak strata perhaps equivalent to our Old Red Sandstone. 



2 * Journal de Geologic,' 1830, p. 192. 



