It is not the explanation here given by the Chevalier de Dolomieu, of the manner in which this great mass of land was formed in the sea, that is concerned with the subject at present under our examination, but certain facts set forth in the Memoir, and a certain conclusion which is there endeavoured to be drawn from those interesting facts[28].  This will be understood by considering; first, it is on all hands acknowledged, that the stratified matter of the globe was successively deposited in the bottom of the sea; secondly, it is also agreed, that this great mass of Sicily, formed originally under the sea, was afterwards placed in the atmosphere, whether by the retreat of the sea or by the elevation of the land; and now, lastly, we are of one mind with respect to the present shape of things, as having been produced by the wasting away of great part of that mass which had been once continued all over the island, as high at least as the tops of the mountains, i.e. about a mile above the level of the sea; we only differ in the time and agents which have been employed in this Operation.

[Footnote 28:  In the first part of this work, the distinction has been made of true volcanic productions, and those which are so frequently confounded with them; these last, though the creatures of subterranean fire, and bodies which have been made to flow in a fluid state, are clearly different from those masses of lava which have issued from a volcano, as has been there described.  I would only here observe, that, according to this Theory, these bodies, which the Chevalier de Dolomieu here represented as lava and volcanic production, must be considered as unerupted lavas, which had been made to flow among the strata of the earth, where other at the bottom of the sea, or during those operations by which this land was erected above the level of the ocean.]

On the one hand, the Memoir now before us represents this great effect as belonging to an unknown cause, so far as we are ignorant of that grand debacle or catastrophe which changed the situation of the sea.  On the other hand, the Theory now proposed explains this operation, of forming those conical mountains of Sicily, and hollowing out its valleys, by known causes, and by employing powers the most necessary, the most constant, and the most general, that act upon the surface of the earth.

But, besides explaining this change of land and water by an unknown cause, our author has here employed, for the removing of this mass of solid rock, powers which appear to me no ways adequate to the end proposed.  The running of water upon the soft mud left by a river, given here as an example, corresponds indeed in some respects with the form of valleys; for, water acts upon the same principle, whether it makes a channel through the subtile sediment of a river, or through the travelled materials of a valley.  But it is not here that there is any difficulty in conceiving