LIFE of Br HUT TON. 73 



beds, lay in horizontal planes at the bottom of the fea, and was 

 not yet difturbed by that immeafurable force which has burfl 

 afunder the folid pavement of the globe. Revolutions ftill more 

 remote appeared in the diflance of this extraordinary perfpec- 

 tive *. The mind feemed to grow giddy by looking fo far into 

 the abyfs of time ; and while we liftened with earneflnefs and 

 admiration to the philofopher who was now unfolding to us the 

 order and feries of thefe wonderful events, we became feniible 

 how much farther reafon may fometimes go than imagination 

 can venture to follow. As for the reft, we were truly fortunate 

 in the courfe we had purfued in this excurfion ; a great number 

 of other curious and important facts prefented themfelves, and 

 we returned, having collected, in one day, more ample materials 

 for future fpeculation, than have fometimes refulted from years 

 of diligent and laborious refearch. 



In the latter part of this fame fummer, (1788), Dr Huttom 

 accompanied the Duke of Athol to the Ifle of Man, with a 

 view of making a mineral furvey of that ifland. What he 

 faw there, however, was not much calculated to illuflrate any of 

 the great facts in geology. He found the main body of the 

 ifland to confifl of primitive fchiflus, much inclined, and more 

 interfered with quartzy veins than the correfponding fchiflus 

 in the fouth of Scotland. In two places on the oppofite fides of 

 the ifland, this fchiflus was covered by fecondary ftrata, but 

 the junction was no where vifible. Some granite veins were ob- 

 ferved in the fchiflus, and many loofe blocks of that flone were 

 met with in the foil, or on the furface, but no mafs of it was to 

 be feen in its native place. The direction of the primitive flra- 

 ta correfponded very well with that in Galloway, running near- 



K 2 ly 



* For a fuller dedu&ion of the conclufions here referred to, fee Theory of the 

 Earth, Vol. I. p. 458. •, alfo Illuflrations of the Hvttonian 'Theory, p. 213. 



