MEMOIR OF REV. JOHN FLEMING, D.D. 659 
the diary of CoaLmers which allude to this period. These remarks are interest- 
ing as incidents in the lives of two eminent men, but still more so as they exhibit 
what John Foster in his Essay has shown so forcibly to be the great difficulty of 
even the greatest of mankind—to write a diary wherein they who, with a fine 
‘scalpel, lay bare the hearts of their fellows, shall yet exhibit the secret recesses 
of their own. In this respect CHALMERS was like other men, and, with all hig 
largeness of heart and intellect, exhibits in these passages how prone we all are 
to err, when writing a memoir of ourselves. In his diary CuaLmeErs says, at date 
8th September 1810— 
“Walked to Monzie. At dinner we had Mr FLeEmrine, presentee to Flisk; 
accomplished in some interesting branches of science, and promises to be a oreat 
acquisition to me, from the congeniality of some of our pursuits. Let me never 
forget the pre-eminence of religion ! 
“« Sunday, September 9th.—Preached twice as usual. Had a pleasant scientific 
conversation with Mr Fremrne all evening. Find him a valuable accession in this 
point of view, but I must keep up with him a tone of seriousness upon religious 
subjects. Have to thank God for giving me courage to go through the exercise of 
family worship. 
“ September 11th.—Had a long walk with Mr Fiemine, and am happy to find 
he expresses a high sense of duty on the subject of the clerical office.” 
When the admirable memoir of CHALMERS appeared, by his gifted son-in-law, 
Dr Hanna, Dr Ftemine asked me if I had read these passages, and what impres- 
sion they made? My answer was, that he (Dr FLemine) was evidently more in- 
terested in discussing scientific and natural history topics than those more suited 
to the Sunday evening fireside of a Presbyterian clergyman. His reply was short 
and characteristic. “ Yes,” he said, ‘“‘ the world will not blame CHaumers; but if 
sin there was that night, he was the sinner. I was his guest, he was my senior, 
and through the whole evening he led the conversation.” 
From hints afforded by his letters, he appears at this time to have observed 
the fact (which he has not brought forward so prominently as it deserves), that 
all basalts rest perpendicularly on the strata beneath ; or rather, that by observ- 
ing the angle which the axis of a basaltic pillar makes with the horizon, we may 
predict that the strata on which it rests are at right angles to that plane. From 
this he deduced that the columnar arrangement of basalt was not due, as had 
been a priori assumed, to igneous fusion, but was derived from volcanic action, 
either primarily, in a muddy condition, or, like the peperino of Italy, thrown up 
from the bowels of the earth, but afterwards arranged by water. Further, that 
the apparent crystalline form was due to the effect of shrinkage, as we see finely 
exampled in the peculiar forms—almost basaltic—assumed by starch, from its 
shrinking during the operation of drying. In support of this view he laid it down 
as an axiom, that no crystallization takes place without a definite chemical com- 
VOL. XXII. PART III. 81 
