by describing most accurately
what he had seen both in the Alps and at the city of Lyons. These are
veins of granite which have flowed from the contiguous mass into the
stratified stone, and leave no doubt with regard to this proposition,
that the granite had flowed in form of subterranean lava, although M. de
Saussure has drawn a very different conclusion from this appearance. I
have also a specimen from this country of a vein of granite in a granite
stone, the vein being of a smaller grain than that of the rock which it
traverses.[20]

[Note 20: This is what I had wrote upon, the subject of granite, before
I had acquired such ample testimony from my own observations upon
that species of rock. I have given some notice, in the 3d vol. of the
Transactions of the Edinburgh R.S. concerning the general result of
those observations, which will be given particularly in the course of
this work.]

It will thus appear, that the doctrine which of late has prevailed, of
primitive mountains, or something which should be considered as original
in the construction of this earth, must be given up as a false view of
nature, which has formed the granite upon the same principle with that
of any other consolidated stratum; so far as the collection of different
materials, and the subsequent fusion of the compound mass, are necessary
operations in the preparation of all the solid masses of the earth.
Whatever operations of the globe, therefore, may be concluded from the
composition of granite masses, as well as of the alpine strata, these
must be considered as giving us information with regard to the natural
history of this earth; and they will be considered as important, in
proportion as they disclose to us truths, which from other strata might
not be so evident, or at all made known.

Let us now examine the arguments, which, may be employed in favour of
that supposition of primitive mountains.

The observations, on which naturalists have founded that opinion of
originality in some of the component parts of our earth, are these;
_first_, They observe certain great masses of granite in which
stratification is not to be perceived; this then they say is an original
mass, and it is not to be derived from any natural operation of the
globe; _secondly_, They observe considerable tracts of the earth
composed of matter in the order of stratification as to its general
composition, but not as to its particular position, the vertical
position h