But the subject of the present investigation goes farther, by inquiring
if, in the operations of the globe, a primary and secondary class of
bodies may be distinguished, so far as the one may have undergone the
operations of the globe, or the vicissitudes of sea and land, oftener
than the other, consequently must be anterior to the later productions
both in time and operation, although the original of all those bodies
be the same, and the operations of the earth, so far as we see in the
effects, always proceed upon the same principles. This is an extensive
view of nature to which few have turned their thoughts. But this is
a subject to which the observations described by this author have
evidently a reference.
In his 113th letter, he has given us a view of one of those parts of the
earth that are proper to be examined in determining this question so
important in the genealogy of land, although no ways concerned in
altering the principles upon which nature in forming continents must
proceed.
It is in describing the nature of the mountains about _Elbingerode_; and
he begins in ascending from Hefeld.
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