GENERAL OBSERVATIONS 
part of one knocked off by a comet. These are, no doubt,, 
very fine specimens of closet world-building, worthy of be- 
ing preserved in the cabinets of the curious. Delightful 
romances ! But we have some still better — we have higher 
flights of the imagination yet on this subject. Later writers 
have supposed that every thing was originally fluid, and 
that this fluid was inhabited by an infinitely great number 
of infinitely small and simple animals and vegetables, which, 
by theii* exuviae, in a course of ages, produced calcareous 
matter and other substances, forming the solid body of the 
Earth ; so that the mineral kingdom, according to them, 
is no more than the debris or exuvise of the animal and 
vegetable. The original or infinitely small monadic animals 
and vegetables, Lamarck, and others, who hold the same 
system, tell us, gradually acquired different habits, became 
larger and more diverse from one another ; and hence all 
the animals and vegetables we now have. Others, again, 
such as Kepler and his followers, not content v/ith peopling 
the globe with an infinite number of small monadic animals, 
and setting their debris and that of vegetables to form 
mountains and the other solid parts of it, have told us that 
the globe itself is one great animal, possessing sensation 
and volition, digestive and respiratory organs, in short, all 
the qualities of a living being ! Fine examples these, we 
see, of geological speculation, which, if they do not evince 
much power of observation, or great accuracy of deduction, 
certainly shew no deficiency in power of fancy. But, iim~ 
hrarwn hie locus est ; let us leave these purely imaginative 
philosophers for others of a more sober cast, — others, who 
would look upon themselves as degraded, — indeed, as grossly 
insulted, to be placed among what we may call the pretty 
novellstk geologers. And yet it does appear that some of 
these, even of these soberer ones, hold opinions little, if at all, 
less strange than certain of those we Iiave already enume- 
