﻿lii PEOCEEBINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



adopted. In giving a list of the English geologists who have ad- 

 vanced this branch of our science, he most strangely omits the name 

 of Lyell — of him who was the first, twenty-seven years ago, to suggest 

 this modification and restriction of the Huttonian theory, and who 

 in the several editions of his ' Manual of Geology,' a work quoted by 

 M. Daubree, has so fully discussed the whole question of metamor- 

 phism, so far as it had advanced, not even omitting the possible 

 agency of water at an intensely high temperature, in producing it, 

 by an internal movement and re-arrangement of the molecules*. 



After noticing some remarkable statements in the works of Des- 

 cartes and Leibnitz, he passes to the more modern names of Buffon, 

 Saussure, Pallas, and Werner, and then dwells at some length on 

 Hutton and his illustrator Playfair, in whose works, he says, we 

 find established and developed, for the first time, certain fundamental 

 principles of modern geology, and especially metamorphism. After 

 pointing out the fundamental hypothesis of Hutton, that the strata 

 had been formed by the detritus of pre-existent rocks and afterwards 

 consolidated by heat, he adds, — " Thus, by an idea entirely new, the 

 illustrious Scotch philosopher showed the successive cooperation of 

 water and the internal heat of the globe in the formation of the same 

 rocks. It is the mark of genius to unite in one common origin phe- 

 nomena very different in their nature. Hutton first pointed out that 

 subterranean heat had not only consolidated and mineralized the 

 deposits at the bottom of the sea, but had moreover raised up and 

 thrown into inclined positions beds which had originally been hori- 

 zontal. Another discovery due to Hutton, which has also been of 

 capital importance in geology, is the eruptive origin of granite. He 

 farther demonstrated, by numerous examples exhibited in Scotland, 

 that the trap-rocks had been injected into regions where there is no 

 indication of a volcano. Hutton explains the history of the globe 

 with as much simplicity as grandeur. Although, by considering the 

 process of decay and renovation a continuous phenomenon, he has 

 thrown a shade over his noble conception, he has rendered immense 

 services in demonstrating that natural causes which operate under 

 our view are sufficient to explain the history of the globe, and that 

 it is unnecessary to have recourse to other modes of action than 

 those exhibited by nature in our own day ; whereas other systems 

 that had been devised assumed, on the contrary, events which had 

 no analogy with what we now witness. Thus Hutton is truly the 

 founder of the fertile principle of the transformation of the sedimentary 

 rocks, by the action of heat. Nevertheless, we shall notice hereafter 

 that there are many deductions to be made from conclusions so 

 absolute. Like most men of genius who have opened up new paths, 

 Hutton exaggerated the extent to which his conceptions could be 

 applied. But it is impossible not to view with admiration the 

 profound penetration, and the strictness of induction of so clear- 

 sighted a man, at a period when exact observations had been so few ; 

 he being the first to recognize the simultaneous effect of water and 

 heat in the formation of rocks, in imagining a system which embraces 

 * Fifth edition, p. 606. 



