derable
portion of the surface of the earth, rising occasionally into
considerable hills, are strata of less uniform and regular inclination,
forming basins and cavities in which the tertiary deposits are often
found to lie, curved to conform to the bottoms of these basins.

The third and fourth series issue in their turn from beneath the
preceding, as does the fifth from beneath the fourth. Each is marked in
succession, by a greater degree of confusion or distortion in the
stratification, until the last, which is apparently upheaved and thrown
about without any regularity, its strata being occasionally found in
positions almost vertical. Not only is the succession of the five
different orders of rocks constant, but so is that in which the several
rocks of each series overlie each other. This regularity of succession
is, however, subject to this law; namely, that rocks of particular
orders, or even the whole order itself, may be wanting in particular
districts; thus, tertiary formations may be directly upon the lower
order, and the second, third, and fourth, may not be present; or any one
of the higher orders may lie directly upon any one of those we have
stated to be inferior to it; but it has never been observed that the
arrangement itself has been inverted, or that a rock which is in one
place inferior, becomes, in its turn, superior in another.

The fifth, or inferior order, is uniformly found beneath one or all of
the others; and, we may infer, that it in fact underlies the whole
surface of the globe, forming not only the foundation of the solid land,
but the original bottom on which the present bed of the sea is
deposited. The rocks that compose this series are all highly crystalline
in their character, are mostly composed of substances wholly or nearly
insoluble in water, are wholly devoid of organic remains, and are in
fact such substances as might be supposed to have been formed by slow
cooling, from a state of igneous fusion. Is it then assuming too much to
infer, that they are in fact the crust which has been first formed upon
the surface of the earth, intensely heated by its own condensation,
under the action of the gravitating force, that, communicated to it by
the hand of the Creator, determined its figure, and still maintains its
equilibrium. We do not include in this class, as is usually done, the
crystalline rocks not stratified, as we conceive them to have been
formed in another manner, to which we sh