I may also give for example the African _Brechia_, which is a
pudding-stone of the same nature. This stone is composed of granites or
porphyries, serpentines and schisti, extremely indurated and perfectly
consolidated. It is also demonstrable from the appearance in this stone
that it has been in a softened state, from the shape and application
of its constituent parts; and in a specimen of it which I have in my
cabinet, there is also a demonstration of calcareous spar flowing among
the gravel of the consolidated rock.
This fact therefore of pudding-stone mountains, is a general fact, so
far as it is founded upon observations that are made in Africa, Germany,
and Britain. We may now reason upon this general fact, in order to see
how far it countenances the idea of primitive mountains, on the one
hand, or on the other supports the present theory, which admits of
nothing primitive in the visible or examinable parts of the earth.
To a person who examines accurately the composition of our mountains,
which occupy the south of Scotland, no argument needs be used to
persuade him that the bodies in question are not primitive; the thing
is evident from inspection, as much as would be the ruins of an ancient
city, although there were no record of its history.
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