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SECOND REPORT— 1832 . 
vancecl in this Essay ; but it may be fairly said of it, that it con¬ 
tains the most complete and condensed general view of the 
geological phenomena, ascertained from observation, which we 
have yet seen, and that by exhibiting these phenomena in a 
constant bearing upon all the great questions of geological 
theory involved in them, it affords a store of materials for the 
investigation of their true relations, with which no one interested 
in the science can dispense. 
Mr. Lyell’s recent Work, in itself sufficiently important to 
mark almost a new sera in the progress of our science, may well 
close this imperfect survey. He has done well to call the at¬ 
tention of geologists to a generalized examination of the various 
changes still effected in our planet by the physical causes in 
operation at the present day, under their precise actual condi¬ 
tions ; because no real philosopher, I conceive, ever doubted 
that the physical causes which have produced the geological 
phsenomena were the same in kind, however they may have 
been modified as to the degree and intensity of their action, by 
the varying conditions under which they may have operated at 
different periods.—It was to these varying conditions that the 
terms, a different order of things, and the like, were, I conceive, 
always intended to have been applied ; though these terms may 
undoubtedly have been by some writers incautiously used. But 
as all are probably agreed, that the causes of nature are per¬ 
manently the same in kind, however their operation at different 
periods may have been modified by the varying conditions 
under which they may have acted, it is an obvious consequence 
that we shall be altogether unqualified to speculate on the 
former action of these causes, unless we are previously fully 
acquainted with their actual operation; this must ever be the 
great key to the analogies of their earlier geological operation ; 
and he who has so ably extended our knowledge on this fun¬ 
damental point as Mr. Lyell has done, must ever be considered 
a most important benefactor to our science. The manner, 
especially, in which he has brought all the stores of a richly 
informed mind to bear on his subject, and, if I may so speak, 
by a kind of process of assimilation, converted as it were every¬ 
thing within the grasp of that mind into geology, is admirable 
as augmenting the domain of our science, and evincing over 
how wide a field that domain may be extended, when admini¬ 
stered by a powerful intellect. His application also of actual 
causes to the solution of the geological phsenomena of the ter¬ 
tiary epoch, is felicitous and satisfactory ; for no one can dis¬ 
pute, that the general conditions under which physical causes 
operated on the surface of our planet, at this most recent geo¬ 
logical period, approximated most closely to the conditions 
