mined with the greatest care, and from the
mineral chart which my friend Mr Watt made for me from his knowledge of
Cornwall, I would say that there is scarcely one five hundred part
of Britain that has granite for its basis. All the rest, except the
porphyry and basaltes, consists of stratified bodies, which are composed
more or less of the materials which I mentioned, generally, in the above
quotation, and which our author would dispute.

But do not let me take the advantage of this error of our author with
regard to the mineralogy of Scotland, and thus draw what may be thought
an undue conclusion in favour of my general theory; let us go over and
examine the continent of Europe, and see if it is any otherwise there
than in Britain. From the granite of the Ural mountains, to that which
we find in the Pyrenees, there is no reason, so far as I have been able
to learn, to conclude that things are formed either upon any other
principle, or upon a different scale. But, instead of one five hundred
part, let us suppose there to be one fiftieth part of the earth in
general resting upon granite, I could not have expressed myself
otherwise than I have done; for, when I maintained that the earth in
general consisted of stratified bodies, I said that this was only _nine
tenths, or perhaps ninety-nine hundredths_ of the whole, and I mentioned
that there were other masses of a different origin, which should be
considered separately. Our author, on the contrary, asserts that the Old
and New Worlds, as well as Scotland, are placed upon granite as a basis,
which he says is according to the testimony of all mineralogists.
I shall have occasion to examine this opinion of mineralogists, in
comparing it with those masses of granite which appear to us; and I hope
fully to refute the geological, as well as mineralogical notions with
regard to that body. In the mean time, let me make the following
reflection, which here naturally occurs.

My Theory of the Earth is here examined,--not with the system of
nature, or actual state of things, to which it certainly should have
corresponded,--but with the systematic views of a person, who has formed
his notions of geology from the vague opinion of others, and not from
what he has seen. Had the question been, How far my theory agreed with
other theories, our author might very properly have informed his readers
that it was diametrically opposite to the opinions of mineralogists;
but, this was no reaso