237 
24. Viewing the action as divine, we may describe it in the 
language of Professor Fairbairn : “ There is here what is in- 
calculably more and better than some occasional proofs of 
interference or fitful displays of power, however grand and 
imposing. There is clear-sighted, far-reaching thought; nicely- 
planned design; mutual adaptations, infinitely varied, of part to 
part ; the action and reaction of countless forces, working with 
an energy that baffles all conception, yet working with the 
most minute mathematical precision, and with the effect of 
producing both the most harmonious operations and the most 
diversified, gigantic, and beneficent results.”* 
CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 
25. Viewing these and their allied effects as a whole, the 
following jDrogression may be observed : — first, granitic rocks ; 
secondly, greenstone penetrating the former ; thirdly, deposits 
in veins by hydro-thermal action ; fourthly, modern volcanoes 
and thermal springs. These phenomena point to a common 
origin ; they are the results, it may be, of one force, but they 
are neither recurrent nor evolutionary. Granite differs from 
greenstone, and both differ from lava ; they belong to different 
epochs. Granite rocks exist in every quarter of the globe ; the 
bulk of them are more ancient than the coal-measures. Green- 
stone, though it may have originated in a still lower stratum, 
is of newer development. Lava is still more modern, and has 
notably a less quantity of silica than either. No modern 
instance of an outburst of either of the former is recorded, 
The preponderance of silica in granite renders it constantly 
different from greenstone. Besides this variation in composition, 
there is an enormous difference in the relative development of 
either, as any geological map will show. The extensive spread 
of the granite rocks, and the frequent occurrence of veins and 
bosses of greenstone, at particular epochs before the secondary 
epoch, has no parallel whatever in the feebler vulcanism of the 
tertiary and modern periods. 
^ 26. The metamorphic rocks point to the same conclusions. 
The bulk of these lie below the Silurians. Metamorphism has 
been diminishing in the upward course of the formations. The 
most terrible volcanic action of modern days is but as summer 
lightning compared with the grandeur and duration of the 
fiery effects written in the beds of Snowdon. Mr. Hopkins 
has shown that the present condition of the globe, as regards 
heat, is not permanent ; that it does not belong to an infinite 
* F airbairn, j Revelation of Law in Scripture , p. 7. 
