Ch. YIIL] NEPTUNIAN THEOKY. 87 



the newer fossiliferous rocks, the secondary of Lehman, were horizontal. 

 To these latter therefore, he gave the name of flotz, or " a level floor ;'•' 

 and every deposit more modern than the chalk, which was classed as the 

 uppermost of the flotz series, was designated " the overflowed land," an 

 expression which may be regarded as equivalent to alluvium, although 

 under this appellation were confounded all the strata afterwards called 

 tertiary, of which Werner had scarcely any knowledge. As the followers 

 of Werner soon discovered that the inclined position of the " transition 

 beds," and the horizontally of the flotz, or newer fossiliferous strata, were 

 mere local accidents, they soon abandoned the term flotz ; and the four 

 divisions of the Wernerian school were then named primitive, transition, 

 secondary, and alluvial. 



As to the trappean rocks, although their igneous origin had been al- 

 ready demonstrated by Arduino, Fortis, Faujas, and others, and especially 

 by Desmarest, they were all regarded by Werner as aqueous, and as mere 

 subordinate members of the secondary series .* 



The theory of Werner's was called the " Neptunian," and for many 

 years enjoyed much popularity. It assumed that the globe had been at 

 first invested by a universal chaotic ocean, holding the materials of all 

 rocks in solution. From the waters of this ocean, granite, gneiss, and 

 other crystalline formations, were first precipitated ; and afterwards, when 

 the waters were purged of these ingredients, and more nearly resembled 

 those of our actual seas, the transition strata were deposited. These were 

 of a mixed character, not purely chemical, because the waves and currents 

 had already begun to wear down solid land, and to give rise to pebbles, 

 sand, and mud ; nor entirely without fossils, because a few of the first 

 marine animals had begun to exist. After this period, the secondary for- 

 mations were accumulated in waters resembling those of the present ocean 

 except at certain intervals, when, from causes wholly unexplained, a par- 

 tial recurrence of the " chaotic fluid" took place, during which various 

 trap rocks, some highly crystalline, were formed. This arbitrary hypothe- 

 sis rejected all intervention of igneous agency, volcanoes being regarded 

 as modern, partial, and superficial accidents, of trifling account among the 

 great causes which have modified the external structure of the globe. 



Meanwhile Hutton, a contemporary of Werner, began to teach, in 

 Scotland, that granite as well as trap was of igneous origin, and had at 

 various periods intruded itself in a fluid state into different parts of the 

 earth's crust. He recognized and faithfully described many of the phe- 

 nomena of granitic veins, and the alterations produced by them on the 

 invaded strata, which will be treated of in the thirty-third chapter. He, 

 moreover, advanced the opinion, that the crystalline strata called primi- 

 tive had not been precipitated from a primaeval ocean, but were sediment- 

 ary strata altered by heat. In his writings, therefore, and in those of his 

 illustrator, Playfair, we find the germ of that metamorphic theory which 

 has been already hinted at in the first chapter, and which will be more 

 fully expounded in the thirty -fourth and thirty-fifth chapters. 



* See Principles of Geology, vol. i. chap. iv. 



