demand the visible appearance of those materials in every stratum of the earth, or in every part of a stratum, is no other than to misunderstand the subject altogether.  The geological observations, which have been thus alleged as contradicting my theory, are stratified bodies, containing proofs of the general origin which I attribute to the earth, but proofs which may not always be seen with equal facility as those which even convince the vulgar.

Our author has surely perplexed himself with what writers of late have said concerning primitive mountains as they are called, a subject of deeper search, than is commonly imagined, as I hope to show in the course of this work.  It is an interesting subject of investigation, as giving us the actual view of those operations of nature which, in forming my Theory of the Earth, more general principles had led me to conclude might be.  But, it is a subject which, I am afraid, will lead me to give farther offence to our author, however innocent I may be in giving nothing but what I have from nature.

The reason for saying so is this; I am blamed for having endeavoured to trace back the operations of this world to a remote period, by the examination of that which actually appears, contrary, as is alleged, “to reason, and the tenor of the Mosaic history, thus leading to an abyss, from which human reason recoils, etc.”  In a word, (says our author), “to make use of his own expression, We find no vestige of a beginning. Then this system of successive worlds must have been eternal.”  Such is the logic by which, I suppose, I am to be accused of atheism.  Our author might have added, that I have also said—­we see no prospect of an end; but what has all this to do with the idea of eternity?  Are we, with our ideas of time, (or mere succession), to measure that of eternity, which never succeeded any thing, and which will never be succeeded?  Are we thus to measure eternity, that boundless thought, with those physical notions of ours which necessarily limit both space and time? and, because we see not the beginning of created things, Are we to conclude that those things which we see have always been, or been without a cause?  Our author would thus, inadvertently indeed, lead himself into that gulf of irreligion and absurdity into which, he alleges, I have boldly plunged.

In examining this present earth, we find that it must have had its origin at the bottom of the sea, although our author seems willing to deny that proposition.  Farther, in examining the internal construction of this stratified and sea-born mass, we find that it had been composed of the moved materials of a former earth; and, from the most accurate and extensive examination of those materials, which in many places are indeed much disguised, we are led necessarily to conclude, that there had been a world existing, and containing an animal, a vegetable, and a mineral system.  But, in thus tracing back the natural operations which