If,
again, it were not properly a granite, but a stone formed of granite
sand, What is the cementing substance?--Is it quartz, felt-spar, mica,
or schorl?--or, Was it calcareous? If our author knows any thing about
these necessary questions, Why has he not informed us, as minutely as
he has done with regard to the dimensions of the mole, with which we
certainly are less concerned? If, again, he knows no more about the
matter than what he has informed us of, he must have strangely imposed
upon himself, to suppose that he was giving us an example of the
_formation of granite in the moist way_, when he has only described an
effectual way of retaining water, by means of sand and mud.
CHAP. III.
Of Physical Systems, and Geological Theories, in general.
In the first chapter I have given a general theory of the earth,
with such proofs as I thought were sufficient for the information of
intelligent men, who might satisfy themselves by examining the facts on
which the reasoning in that theory had been founded.
In the second chapter, I have endeavoured to remove the objections which
have been made to that theory, by a strenuous patron of the commonly
received opinion of mineralogists and geologists,--an opinion which, if
not diametrically opposite, differs essentially from mine.
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