the composition of strata from the materials of
an earth thus worn out in the service of vegetation,--materials which
are necessarily removed in order to make way for that change of things
in which consists the active and living system of this world. If he
succeed in this attempt to refute my theory of the original formation
of strata, he would then doubtless find it more easy to persuade
philosophers that the means which I employ in bringing those materials
again to light, when transformed into such solid masses as the system of
this earth requires, are extravagant, unnatural, and unnecessary. Let us
then see how he sets about this undertaking.
With regard to the composition of the earth, it is quoted from my
theory, that _the solid parts of the globe are in general composed
of sand, gravel, argillaceous and calcareous strata, or of various
compositions of these with other substances_; our author then adds,
"This certainly cannot be affirmed as a fact, but rather the contrary;
it holds only true of the surface, the basis of the greater part of
Scotland is evidently a granitic rock, to say nothing of the continents,
both of the Old and New World, according to the testimony of all
mineralogists.
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