If granite be truly stratified, and those strata connected with the
other strata of the earth, it can have no claim to originality; and
the idea of primitive mountains, of late so much employed by natural
philosophers, must vanish, in a more extensive view of the operations of
the globe; but it is certain that granite, or a species of the same kind
of stone, is thus found stratified. It is the _granit feuilletee_ of
M. de Saussure, and, if I mistake not, what is called _gneis_ by the
Germans. We have it also in our north alpine country of Scotland; of
this I have specimens, but have not seen it in its place.

Granite being thus found stratified, the masses of this stone cannot be
allowed to have any right of priority over the schistus, its companion
in the alpine countries, although M. de Saussure, whose authority I
would revere, has given it for the following reason; that it is found
the most centrical in the chains of high mountains, or in alpine
countries. Now, supposing this fact to be general, as he has found it in
the Alps, no argument for the priority of those masses can be founded
either upon the height or the situation of those granite mountains; for
the height of the mountain depends upon the solidity and strength of the
stone. Now though it is not to be here maintained that granite is the
most durable of those alpine rocks, yet as a mountain, either granite in
general, or in particular, certain species of it, may be esteemed such,
consequently, this massy stone, remaining highest in the mountainous
region, will naturally be considered as the centre, and according to
this rule, as having the pre-eminence in point of seniority.

The rock which stands in competition with granite for the title of
primitive in the order of mountains, is that micaceous stratified stone
which is formed chiefly of quartz, but which admits of great variety
like the granite. The difference between those two bodies does not
consist in the materials of which they are composed, for, in their
varieties, they may be in this respect the same, but in a certain
regularity of composition, in this alpine stone, which evidently arises
from stratification or subsidence in water.

If we shall thus consider all the varieties of this alpine stone as
being of one kind, and call it granite, then we shall distinguish in
this body two different species, from whence perhaps some interesting
conclusion may be formed with regard to the operations of the gl