ledging strata, which had been formed in the sea of loose
materials, to be consolidated and raised into the place of land, is
plainly giving up the idea of primitive mountains. The only question,
therefore, which remains to be solved, must respect the order of things,
in comparing the alpine schisti with the secondary strata; and this
indeed forms a curious subject of investigation.

It is plain that the schisti had been indurated, elevated, broken, and
worn by attrition in water, before the secondary strata, which form the
most fertile parts of our earth, had existed. It is also certain that
the tops of our schistus mountains had been in the bottom of the sea
at the time when our secondary strata had begun to be formed; for the
pudding-stone on the top of our Lammermuir mountains, as well as the
secondary strata upon the vertical schisti of the Alps and German
mountains, affords the most irrefragable evidence of that fact.

It is further to be affirmed, that this whole mass of water-formed
materials, as well as the basis on which it rested, had been subjected
to the mineral operations of the globe, operations by which the loose
and incoherent materials are consolidated, and that which was the bottom
of the sea made to occupy the station of land, and serve the purpose for
which it is destined in the world. This also will appear evident, when
it is considered that it has been from the appearances in this very
land, independent of those of the alpine schisti, that the present
theory has been established.

By thus admitting a primary and secondary in the formation of our land,
the present theory will be confirmed in all its parts. For, nothing but
those vicissitudes, in which the old is worn and destroyed, and new
land formed to supply its place, can explain that order which is to be
perceived in all the works of nature; or give us any satisfactory
idea with regard to that apparent disorder and confusion, which would
disgrace an agent possessed of wisdom and working with design.

CHAP. VII.

Opinions examined with regard to Petrifaction, or Mineral Concretion.

The ideas of naturalists with regard to petrifaction are so vague and
indistinct, that no proper answer can be given to them. They in general
suppose water to be the solvent of bodies, and the vehicle of petrifying
substances; but they neither say whether water be an universal
menstruum, nor do they show in what manner a solid body has been formed
in the b