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 reason for concluding it to be erroneous; on the
contrary, it is rather a presumption that I may have corrected the error
of mineralogists who have gone before me, in like manner as it is most
reasonable to presume that our author may have corrected mine.
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