decomposition of the primitive rocks. But we think that this for mation cannot be objected to for several of them, more especially such as contain maguesia in the greatest abundance. It frequently happens that the secondary schists are interspersed with pyrites; and, in this case, the simple contact of air and water facilitates their decomposition. Sulphuric acid is thus formed, which combines with the various constituent principles of the stone; whence result the sulphats of iron, of magnesia, of alumina, and of line, which effloresce at the surface, and remain confounded together. Schists of this nature are wrought in most places where alum works have been established: and the most laborious part of this undertaking consists in separating the sulphats of iron, of lime, and of magnesia from each other, which are mixed together. Sometimes the magnesia is so abundant that its sulphat predominates. The sulphat of lime, being very sparingly soluble in water, is carried away by that liquid, and deposited to form gypsum, or the earth of plaster of Paris; while the other more soluble salts, remaining suspended, form vitriolic mineral waters. The pyritous schists are frequently impregnated with bitumen, and the proportions constitute the various qualities of pit-coal. It appears that we may lay it down as an incontestable principle, that pyrite is abundant in proportion as the bituminous principle is more scarce. Hence it arises, that coals of a bad quality are the most sulphureous, and destroy metallic vessels, by converting them into pyrite. The foci of volcanoes appear to be formed by a schist of this nature; and in the analyses of the stony matters which are ejected, we find the same principles as those which constitute this schist. We ought not therefore to be much surprised at finding schorls among volcanic products; and still less at observing that subterranean fires throw sulphuric salts, sulphur, and other analogous products, out of the entrails of the earth. 3. The remains of terrestrial vegetables exhibit a mixture of primitive earths more or less coloured by iron: we may therefore consider these as a matrix in which the seeds of all stony combinations are dispersed. The earthy principles assort themselves according to the laws of their affinities; and form crystals of spar, of plaister, and even the rock crystals, according to all appearance: for we find ochreous earths in which these crystals are abundantly dispersed; we see them formed almost under our eyes. We have frequently observed indurated ochres full of these crystals terminating in two pyramids. The ochreous earths appear to deserve the greatest attention of naturalists. They constitute one of the most fertile means of action which nature employs; and it is even in earths nearly similar to these that she elaborates the diamond, in the kingdoms of Golconda and Visiapour. The spoils of animals, which live on the surface of the globe, are entitled to some consideration among the number of causes which we assign to explain the various changes our planet is subjected to. We find bones in a state of considerable preservation in certain places; we can even frequently enough distinguish the species of the animals to which they have belonged. From indications of this sort it is that some writers have endeavoured to explain the disappearance of certain species; and to draw conclusions thence, either that our planet is perceptibly cooled, or that a sensible change bas taken place in the position of the axis of the earth. The phosphoric salts and phosphorus which have been found, in our time, in combination with lead, iron, &c. prove that, in proportion as the principles are disengaged by animal decomposition, they combine with other bodies, and form the nitric acid, the alkalies, and in general all the numerous kinds of nitrous salts. In examining, then, the merits of the antagonist systems of geology now offered, we have no objection to confess, that to the Huttonian belongs the praise of novelty, boldness of conception, and unlimited extent of view. It aspires not only to account for the present appearances of the earth, but to trace a plan by which the formation of successive worlds is developed: it seeks to extend that order and arrangement, that principle of balance and restoration observed in all the departments of nature, to the constitution of the globe itself. With this system the Neptunian forms a perfect contrast. It presumes not to carry its researches beyond the commencement of the present world, or to extend them beyond its termination. All the phænomena of geology conspire to prove that water has been the great agent by which rocks have been formed, and the surface of the earth arranged. It does not pretend to deny the existence of subterranean fires to a certain extent, or that many of the phæno mena which strike us most forcibly may be the result of such an agency; but it does deny that such an agency is the grand or general cause of the geological facts and appearances that accost us on every side, and denies still farther that any such fire or heat can exist to an extent competent to such an extent. While the science remains in an imperfect state, deficiencies may be found in the application of its general principle. But we discover no inconsistencies with that principle, nor contradictions to known and established truths. More especially do we feel disposed to adhere to this last theory from its general coincidence with the cosmogony of the Holy Scriptures. The Mosaic account indeed restrains the process of creation, and the period in which the waters covered the entire surface of the globe to a limit in which, "if the terms be understood in their strict and literal sense, the existing phænomena of nature seem to evince that they could not possibly have occurred for it confines the entire work of creation within the compass of six days. In another part of the Scriptures, however, we have undeniable proofs that the term day, instead of being restrained to a single revolution of the earth around its axis, is used in a looser and more general sense, for a definite, indeed, but a much more extensive period and we have as ample a proof from the book of nature, the existing face of the earth, that the six days or periods referred to in the Mosaic cosmology imply epochs of much greater duration than so many diurnal revolutions—as we have in the page of human history, that the same terms were employed with the same laxity of meaning by the prophet Daniel. Thus interpreted, scepticism is driven from her last and inmost fortress: every subterfuge is annihilated, and the word and work of the Deity are in perfect unison with each other. That the Creator might have produced the whole by a single and instantaneous effort, is not to be denied: but as both revelation and nature concur in asserting that such was not the fact, it is no more derogatory to him with whom a thousand years are but as one day, and one day as a thousand years, to suppose that he allotted six thousand years to the completion of his design than that he executed it in six days. And surely there is something far more magnificent in conceiving the world to have progressively attained form, order, and vitality, from the mere operation of powers com municated to it in a state of chaos, or unfashioned matter, than in supposing the actual and persevering exertions of the Almighty for a definite, although a shorter period of time.-Editor. See also Good and Gregory's Pantalogia, and Comparative Statement of the Huttonian and Neptunian Systems of Geology. CHAP. II. HISTORY OF THE GENERAL DELUGE, AND OPINIONS SIXTEEN hundred and fifty-six years after the earth was made and inhabited, it was overflowed and destroyed in a deluge of water: not a deluge that was national only, or over-ran some particular region; but that overspread the face of the whole earth, from pole to pole, and from east to west; and that in such excess, that the floods over-covered the tops of the highest mountains; the rains descending after an unusual manner, and the fountains of the great deep be ing broken open; so that a general destruction and devastation were brought upon the earth and all things in it, mankind and other living creatures; excepting only Noah and his family, who, by a special providence of God, were preserved in a certain ark, or vessel, with such kinds of living creatures as he took in with him. After these waters had raged for some time on the earth, they began to lessen and shrink; and the great waves and fluctuations of this deep, or abyss, being quieted by degrees, the waters retired into their channels and caverns within the earth; and the mountains and fields began to appear, and the whole habitable earth in that form and shape wherein we now see it, Then the world began again; and, from that little remnant preserved in the ark, the present race of mankind, and of animals, in the known parts of the earth, were propagated. Thus perished the old world, and the present arose from the ruins and remains of it. This is a short story of the greatest event that ever happened in the world; the greatest revolution, and the greatest change in nature and which justly therefore deserves to be more particularly considered in all its circumstances. A That there was such an universal destruction by water, as is related by Moses, is confirmed by the concurrent testimonies of several of the most ancient writers and nations in the world. The Chaldean records give the following account of it, as they have descended to us from Berosus. Chronus or Saturn appeared in a dream to Xisuthrus, the tenth of the Chaldean kings, according to the table of Africanus, and warned him that on the fifteenth of the month Dæsius, mankind would be destroyed by a flood: and therefore commanded him to write down the original, intermediate state, and end of all things, and bury the writings under ground in Sippara, the city of the sun; that he should also build a ship, and go into it with his relations and dearest friends, having first furnished it with provisions, and taken into it fowls and four-footed beasts; and that when he had provided every thing, and was asked whither he was sailing, he should answer, To the gods, to pray for happiness to mankind.' Xisuthrus did not disobey, but built a vessel, whose length was five furlongs, and breadth two furlongs. He put on board all that he was directed, and went into it with his wife, children, and friends. The flood being come, and soon ceasing, Xisuthrus let out certain birds, which finding no food, nor place to rest upon, returned again to the ship. Xisuthrus, after some days, let out the birds again; but they came back to the ship, having their feet daubed with mud; but when they were let go the third time, they came no more to the ship, whereby Xisuthrus understood that the earth appeared again; and thereupon he made an opening between the planks of the ship, and seeing that it rested on a certain mountain, he came out with his wife, and his daughter, and his pilot; and having worshipped the earth, and raised an altar, and sacrificed to the gods, he, and those who went out with him, disappeared. They who were left behind in the ship, finding Xisuthrus and the persons that accompanied him, did not return, went out themselves to seek for him, calling him aloud by his name; but Xisuthrus was no more seen by them; only a voice came out of the air, which injoined them, as their duty was, to be religious; and informed them, that, on account of his own piety; he was gone to dwell with the gods; and that his wife and daughter, and pilot, were partakers of the same honour. It also directed them to return to Babylon, and that, as |