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ture of the neighbourhood of Bath, made known the facts he had observed there, and the inferences which they suggested, with the warmth and liberality-we may add, with the want of prudence-that are frequently characteristic of men of talents. Geology was, at that period, in its infancy in England; but the importance of these observations could not fail to attract attention. The enumeration of the West-of-England strata was circulated extensively in manuscript; maps also, and sections of the stratification in other parts of the island were shown by Mr Smith himself at different agricultural and commercial meetings; and printed proposals for a book upon the subject, to be accompanied by a general map and section, were distributed in 1801. The elements of the present performance being thus in fact made public, they have had a very important, though unobserved effect, upon the labours of all succeeding inquirers, who have been, perhaps unconsciously, but not less really, indebted to the author for very essential assistance in their progress.

Taking leave, however, of all controversy, and regarding the publications before us as an acquisition of great value, we shall premise to our account of them, a sketch of some points in the history of preceding discoveries, that our readers may be enabled to distinguish the portion of Mr Smith's communication that is truly original, from the mere filling up of outlines which others had previously traced:-a field of inquiry, that, with regard to our present subject, may be confined, in a great measure, to the newer and more regularly stratified portions of the globe.

The French Encyclopedie Methodique contains, under the article Physical Geography, published in 1796 by the late M. Desmarest, a full account of some of the principal publications upon that subject, to the middle of the last century; from whence may be obtained some valuable facts, diluted very plentifully with speculation about the primeval state of the globe. But, on the whole, these volumes have not much increased our respect for the Geologists of the last two centuries,—the perusal of them having irresistibly brought to our minds the speech of the knavish old gentleman, in the Vicar of Wakefield, whose opinion, after all, comes very near the truth. You talk, Sir, of the world! the world is in its dotage: and yet the cosmogony, or creation of the world, has puzzled the philosophers of every age. What a medley of opinions have they not broach• ed upon the subject! Sanconiathon, Manetho, Berosus, and • Ocellus Lucanus, have ali attempted it in vain.' We shall attempt, however, to select from this chaos of philosophers,

the names of a few only, who have given something real to the science of geology, with the addition of some others not mentioned by Desmarest: But it is only fair to add, that we are far from supposing Mr Smith to have been acquainted with these writings.

In the medley of opinions' so learnedly alluded to by Mr Jenkinson, there is none more extraordinary than that maintained about the close of the 17th century, by Ray, Lister, and other eminent naturalists, respecting the substances now universally considered as the remains of organized beings. It will seem almost incredible to those who are acquainted with the works of Cuvier, and other inquirers of our days, that such a notion could at any time have found supporters. The great

question, now so much controverted in the world,' Dr Plot tells us, in 1677, was, Whether the stones we find in the form of shell fish, (and in his plates they are, with the cau⚫tion usual at that period upon this subject, denominated 'formed stones, ') be lapides sui generis, naturally produced by some extraordinary plastic virtue, latent in the earth, in quarries where they are found; or whether they rather owe their form and figure to the shells of the fishes they represent, &c.'And this learned writer gives seven weighty reasons for adhering to the former of these opinions, in opposition to the sentiments of Hook, and other persons, who entertained more rational views. This curious absurdity affords a good illustration of the danger of hypothesis in natural history; having originated entirely from the assumption, that the general deluge was the only cause that could have occasioned the deposition of the bodies in question: and as that great event was evidently too transitory, for the production of appearances observable at great depths from the surface, the shortest road of explanation was chosen ; and it was boldly denied, that the fossils of the solid strata had ever been endowed with life. Palisey, indeed, is praised by Fontenelle, for having refuted this opinion long before ;-yet afterwards, in 1708, a book was published by Scheuchzer, under the title of Piscium Querela et Vindiciae,' where the unhappy fishes, entombed in stony substances, are represented as deploring, in very pathetic language, the indignity under which they suffer, in being degraded from the animal kingdom, to the rank of mere brute matter. + This remonstrance, however, does

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Natural History of Oxfordshire, p. 111.

+ The fanciful tendency of this last writer's understanding might weaken his authority upon this point, if it stood alone; for, in his

not seem to have been effectual; for Woodward, in 1723, still thought it necessary to reason against the doctrine we have mentioned: And afterwards, and so late as 1752, M. Bertrand, a Swiss clergyman, made a last effort in its favour, contending that fossil-shells, &c. are nothing more than links in the progressive series by which unorganized matter is connected with the animated world; or perhaps the unfinished materials, (' in fieri,' as Dr Plot had long before expressed it), out of which the Creator might have formed, and in part did form, the existing races of similar beings.

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In the Philosophical Transactions for 1684, there is published, An ingenious proposal for a new sort of maps of countries, together with tables of sands and clays, such chiefly as are found in the north parts of England, by the learned Martin Lister, M. D.'; and the paper is there stated to have been drawn un about ten years before. We shall then,' the author begins, be the better able to judge of the make of the earth, and of many phenomena belonging thereto, when we shall have well and duly examined it, as far as human art can possibly reach, beginning from the outside downwards. As for the inward and central parts thereof, I think we shall never be able to refute Gilbert's opinion thereof, who will not, without reason, have it altogether iron. And for this purpose, it were adviseable that a soil or mineral map, as I may call it, were devised.'-Under the term soiles,' however, he enumerates chalk, flint, sandstone, coal, ironstone, lead ore, &c. intending evidently to signify the solid strata, as well as the looser materials of the surface; and he adds-- Now, if it were noted how far these extended, and the limits of each soil appeared upon a map, something more might be comprehended from the whole, and from every part, than I can possibly foresee, which would make such a labour well worth the pains. For, I am of opinion, such upper soils, if natural, infallibly produce such under minerals, and for the most part, in such order. But I leave this to the industry of future times. So far, therefore, as the project of a Geological Map, (for the author does not appear to have executed his design), the credit of originality is due to Dr Lister; and may be allowed to atone for his adherence to the hypothesis we have just condemned, as to the origin of fossil remains.

Herbarium Diluvianum,' a catalogue of the plants submerged by the waters of the deluge, he has undertaken to determine the period of the year at which that event occurred, which he asserts must positively have been about the latter end of May, from the appearance of a certain fossil that he calls a spike of barley; but which, it is quite evident from his engraving, was a body of a very different description,

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The labours of WOODWARD deserve to be mentioned more distinctly; though his views were warped by the then prevailing taste for Antediluvian history. He not only devoted himself with great perseverance and success to the collection of organized fossils, upon which he has given many valuable remarks; but he appears to have had some very correct notions as to the neral structure of the globe, and the proper method of pursuing the investigation of it. I made strict inquiry,' he tells us, wherever I came, and laid out for intelligence of all places where the entrails of the earth were laid open, either by nature (if I may so say) And wheresoever I had notice of or by art and human industry. any considerable natural spelunca or grotto, any sinking of wells, or digging for earths, &c. or the like, I forthwith had recourse thereunto. The result was, that in time I was abundantly assured, that the circumstances of these things in remoter countries were much the same with those of ours here,' &c. *-The collection of minerals and fossils left by Woodward to the University of Cambridge, is to this day of great value as an object of reference, from the fidelity with which he recorded the native places and situation of the various specimens it contains.

The writings of BUFFON contributed much to attract the attention of naturalists to the discrimination of organized remains, and to the important light which may be drawn from them upon the structure and history of the globe. But the most valuable observations of that period, were unquestionably those of RouELLE, whose opinions, as stated by Desmarest, deserve in many respects attentive consideration. He was the first who pointed out- que ces corps n'étoient pas jettés au hazard ni dans l'état de confusion que l'on avoit imaginé communèment avant lui-au lieu de cette confusion, on reconnoit un ordre constant dans l'arrangement des coquilles, dont certains individus font bande à part, et ne se confondent point avec d'autres qui ont aussi leurs familles separées ;que ces coquilles n'étoient pas les mêmes dans toutes les contrées ;que certains individus se rencontroient constamment ensemble, tandis que d'autres ne se trouvoient jamais dans les mêmes lits, dans les mêmes couches;-que ces collections de coquilles fossilles, à la surface de certaines parties de nos continens, étoient dans le même état d'arrangement et de distribution, que dans le bassin de la mer, où certains animaux testacées affectent de vivre ensemble attachés aux mêmes parages, et d'y former ces espéces de sociétés ou familles, de même que certaines plantes, qui croissent toujours ensemble à la surface de la terre.'t We need not stop to point out the close

Nat. Hist. of the Earth 1723. pp. 4. 6.

+ Encyclop. Method.:-Geographie Physique, tom. I. pp. 416-417. (LXIV Livraison.).

coincidence between what is here expressed, and the principle. that has furnished Mr Smith with the title of one of his publications- Strata Identified by Organized Fossils, '—and of which the French naturalists have made such excellent use in their examination of the country round Paris.

If the statements of Desmarest be not incorrect, it would further appear, that Rouelle not only anticipated, or was coincident with Lehman in the distinction (previously intimated, we believe, by Steno and Targioni) between the primary and secondary mountains; but that he had also perceived the division that exists in nature between the older and more recent of the secondary depositions, the former of which he distinguished by the judicious title of Travaille intermediaire; a discrimination and a name coming evidently very near to the Transition Class of Werner, with whom Rouelle still more remarkably coincides, in noticing the comparative rarity and the peculiar character of the fossils contained in the Intermediate rocks. It is impossible, without specimens or detailed information, to judge of the precise value of this discrimination of Rouelle; but, on the whole, if Desmarest, who was his pupil, is to be relied upon, (for he himself, like Werner, delivered his principal geological opinions in lectures only), the correctness of his views is very remarkable.

*

In a treatise which LEHMAN published in 1756, + he claims for himself the credit of being the first to observe and describe correctly the structure of stratified countries. He supposes, however, that coal beds are the lowest of the stratified substances; that various pierres feuillettes' occupy the middle portion, and the beds that afford the saline springs (fontaines salantes), the uppermost of the strata; which arrangement, he asserts, is uni versal: And, after detailing the order, composition and thickness of the series surrounding the nucleus of the Hartz moun tains, and that occur in some detached portions of the northeast of Germany, he points out the identity of certain beds in some of the places described, though distant from each other several miles, without, however, asserting that the corresponding strata are absolutely continuous. His treatise is also interspersed with very good remarks upon the nomenclature and relations of strata; and on the important purposes in practical mining, which might be served by the study of them.

* Encyclop. Method. pp. 412. 413. 417. 815.-and compare with Jameson's Geognosy, p. 80. 81. 146.

+ Versuch einen geschichte von Floetz Gebürgen. Berlin, 1756. Translated by Holback; with other productions of Lehman, under the title of Traités de Physique,' &c. Paris, 1759. Vol. III.

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