aliquando, junctisque copiis, totam terram obruant et pessun'dent.'*

Dr. Burnet's Theory' covered the abyss with a superficial crust, constituting the exterior of the globe. At the Deluge this was broken up, forming the mountains by its fragments, and the seas by its collapse. Descartes and Leibnitz represented the earth as an extinguished and vitrified sun, first exhaling, and then condensing the vapours, which, in their present state, compose our oceans. De Maillet imagined the actual condition of the globe to be the result of the gradual secession of the waters which originally covered it. All animals were primarily inhabitants of this vasty deep'; and man himself is nothing more than a civilized fish, having, by a slow adaptation of his habits to his new domicile, gradually laid aside his fins and tail. The sun, according to Buffon, supplied the elements of our planet, as well as those of his revolving system, through the concussion of a comet, which struck off from it a sufficient number of fragments to furnish him with his present satellites. 'Other writers,' observes Baron Cuviert, have preferred the 'ideas of Kepler, and, like that great astronomer, have consi'dered the globe itself as possessed of vital faculties. According to them, a vital fluid circulates in it; a process of assimilation goes on in it, as well as in animated bodies; every particle of it is alive; it possesses instinct and volition, even to 'the most elementary molecules, which attract and repel each other according to sympathies and antipathies. Each kind of 'mineral has the power of converting immense masses into its own nature, as we convert our food into flesh and blood. The mountains are the respiratory organs of the globe, and 'the schists its organs of secretion; it is by these latter that it 'decomposes the water of the sea, in order to produce the ' matter ejected by volcanoes. The veins are carious sores, abscesses of the mineral kingdom; and the metals are pro

* Dr. Burnet himself published a translation of the original Latin; and we had intended to cite his own rendering of the above passage. In this instance, however, as indeed throughout the work, his spirit seems to flag when he writes in English. In his version of this paragraph, he takes away the point and finish of the picture, by leaving out the personification of burning mountains as the soldiers of God, ready to rush forth to the destruction of a guilty world.

+ In his valuable Essay on the Theory of the Earth,' as translated by Professor Jameson. This able treatise contains a complete demolition of the malignant reveries of Dupuis and Volney, who, taking for their text the celebrated Zodiac of Dendera, endeavoured to prove the falsehood of the Mosaic history. The Translator's notes are not always to our taste.

'ducts of rottenness and disease, which is the reason that almost 'all of them have so bad a smell. More recently still, a philosophy which substitutes metaphor for reasoning, and pro'ceeds on the system of absolute identity or of pantheism, 'attributes the production of all phenomena, or, which, in the eyes of its supporters, is the same thing, all beings, to polari-. 'zation, such as is manifested by the two electricities; and de-nominating every kind of opposition or difference, whether of situation, of nature, or of function, by the title of Polariza'tion, opposes to each other, in the first place, God and the 'universe; then, in the universe, the sun and the planets; next, in each planet, the solid and the liquid; and, pursuing 'this course, changing its figures and allegories according to its necessities, at length arrives at the last details of organic 'species.'

Crystallization-detritus, pressure, and caloric- the successive lapse of minor seas-the effects of immense tides-the accretion of meteoric stones-a traversing loadstone, shifting the centre of gravity-these and many other imaginations have been, at different periods, put forward by men of no mean name, as sufficient to account for the structure and vicissitudes of the earth. After all, however, that the vanity of human science has grasped at, and the restlessness of human curiosity achieved, we have not got beyond our first lesson:-" In the "beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." The matter is as simple as an infant's task, if we will take the Creator's account of his own work, but is pressed down with an atlas-load of difficulties, when we entangle ourselves with the “oppositions "of science falsely so called." We first make contradictions, and then, wondering at our own perverse ingenuity, set them down as insurmountable. We begin by multiplying fantastic obstacles, and finish by standing aghast at hinderances of our own invention. It is taken tacitly for granted, that we are so far in possession of the master-key of nature, as that there can remain no very important agents yet undetected by the keen and persevering researches of scientific men; whereas, there may exist active and interior elements, of which the operations now in view are but the faint and extreme vibrations. The central secrets of nature are as yet unviolated. We stand but on the threshold of the great temple of creation, and it may be the work of eternity to explore its mysteries.

From the peculiar character of their phenomena, it might have been supposed, that burning mountains would in all ages have obtained a specific attention, as calculated to throw much light on inquiries which have ever excited more or less of curiosity, though most frequently of a superficial or misdirected

kind. But the spirit of Pliny slumbered through a long succession of centuries. Investigators were content with pebblehunting and metallurgy; and it has only been within our own times, that Nature has been traced to her deep and dangerous haunts, and resolutely questioned of her mysterious operations. Spallanzani, Dolomieu, Sir William Hamilton, and others, distinguished themselves by minute and well-conducted investigations of volcanic tracts, and treasured up a valuable collection of important observations for the use and guidance of their

successors.

At this period WERNER made his appearance in the field of geology; and by the fascination of his enthusiasm, the novelty of his theories, and the apparent truth of the limited number of facts on which they were built, drew triumphantly after him the whole body of European naturalists, changed for a time the direction of geological research, and confined it to that series of formations which he was the first to point out. Werner unfortunately enjoyed no opportunity of studying the phænomena of active volcanos; and that he was totally unacquainted with their nature and effects, is evident from his supposing them analogous to the placid combustion of ignited coal-beds. From this cause, and in part perhaps from others, he seems to have entertained a contempt,-it might almost be said an antipathy to them. His numerous disciples, and those of the schools founded upon his system, inherited this aversion. They followed his example, in confining the effects of these extraordinary subterranean agents within the narrowest imaginable compass, and reducing to a comparative nothing the share they have had in the construction or derangement of the globe's actual surface.'-Scrope's Memoir.

A vigorous re-action has, however, taken place; and for some years past, this branch of natural philosophy has been diligently and successfully cultivated, and the results of the investigation will be found in the documents before us. We shall endeavour, as briefly as possible, to give a general view of their contents, without entangling ourselves in the controversies agitated among geologists. For ourselves, we feel no disposition to advocate extreme opinions on either side. We are inclined to

view the present state of the science as an accumulation, rather than a classification of facts, and to think that matters are not, as yet, ripe for theory. Where knowledge is incomplete, no system that aims at any thing more than indicial arrangement, can be otherwise than injurious; it pre-occupies the mind, and disqualifies it for patient investigation and impartial decision.

Dr. Daubeny's work retains its original form of lectures, four in number, as delivered before the University of Oxford. The first and second relate to volcanic regions actually visited by the Author. The third contains a general description of similar

tracts in countries beyond the range of his travels. The fourth gives a clear and intelligent statement of general inferences respecting volcanic phænomena.' The most interesting parts of the volume are those which contain the results of personal examination; and among these, we have been most gratified with the sections illustrative of the volcanic districts of Auvergne; an extensive and highly instructive range of country, exhibiting in all directions the wild disturbance of elastic fluids and fiery inundations, bursting through the superincumbent strata of the globe. To this tract, Mr. Scrope has devoted an entire memoir, with a distinct atlas of coloured views and sections. Mr. S., as we have before intimated, is an acute and ready systematizer; and this peculiarity manifests itself throughout his composition. He is not satisfied with collecting facts; but hastens with (as we think) somewhat too much of precipitation, to refer them to general principles. There is, however, nothing frivolous in these excursions from the beaten path. A vigorous mind manifests itself throughout; and, although the more calm and philosophic cast of Dr. Daubeny's Lectures is in better taste, and argues a sounder and more trustworthy discretion, it will be found a bracing exercise, to follow out Mr. Scrope's illustrations of the laws of volcanic agency, as given, with considerable detail, in the Considerations on Volcanos.' If his tranchant tone is sometimes indicative of presumption, and his style is occasionally disfigured by affectation, these are faults which, if he be, as we imagine, a young man, time will correct.

'To those who now travel over the mountains of central France, and see on all sides marks of volcanic agency exhibited in the most decided manner, numerous hills formed entirely of loose cinders, red, porous, and scarified as those just thrown from a furnace, and surrounded by plains of black and rugged lava, on which the lichen almost refuses to vegetate, it appears scarcely credible that, previous to the last half century, no one had thought of attributing these marks of desolation to the only power in nature capable of producing them. This apparent blindness is, however, very natural, and not without example. The inhabitants of Herculaneum and Pompeia built their houses with the lavas of Vesuvius, ploughed up its scoriæ and ashes, and gathered their chesnuts from its crater, without dreaming of their neighbourhood to a volcano which was to give the first notice of its existence by burying them under the products of its eruptions. The Catanians regarded as fables all relations of the former activity of Ætna, when, in 1669, half their town was overwhelmed by one of its currents of lava.

In the year 1751, two members of the Academy of Paris, Guettard and Malesherbes, on their return from Italy, where they had visited Vesuvius and observed its productions, passed through Montelimart, a small town on the left bank of the Rhone; and after dining with a party of savans resident there, amongst whom was M. Faujas

de St. Fond, walked out to explore the neighbourhood. The pavement of the streets immediately attracted their attention. It is formed of short articulations of basaltic columns planted perpendicularly in the ground, and resembles in consequence those ancient roads in the vicinity of Rome, which are paved with polygonal slabs of lava. Upon enquiry, they learnt that these stones were brought from the rock upon which the castle of Rochemaure is built, on the opposite side of the Rhone; and were informed, moreover, that the mountains of the Vivarais abounded with similar rocks. This account determined the Academicians to visit that province, and step by step they reached the capital of Auvergne, discovering every day fresh reason to believe in the volcanized nature of the mountains they traversed. Here all doubts on the subject ceased. The currents of lava in the vicinity of Clermont, black and rugged as those of Vesuvius, descending uninterruptedly from some conical hills of scoriæ, most of which present a regular crater, convinced them of the truth of their conjectures, and they loudly proclaimed the interesting discovery. On their return to Paris, M. Guettard published a memoir announcing the existence of volcanic remains in Auvergne, but obtained very little credit. The idea appeared to most persons an extravagance; and even at Clermont, a sagacious professor, who ascribed the volcanic scoriæ to the remains of iron-furnaces, established in the neighbouring mountains by those authors of every thing marvellous, the Romans, gained far more partizans than the naturalist. By degrees, however, the obstinacy of ignorance was forced to yield to convic tion.'-Scrope's Memoir.

These mountains admit, for the purposes of description, of an easy arrangement: the Monts Dome-the Mont Dor-the Cantal-with their respective dependencies, and a fourth district, comprising the ancient provinces of the Velay and Vivarais. Without attempting a minute or scientific account of these divisions, we shall endeavour to furnish a general notion of their distinguishing characteristics. The Dome mountain and its connected elevations, are in number about seventy, of all dimensions, independent of each other, and forming, with the accumulations of scoria and ashes, a high but irregular ridge, trending north and south, about eighteen miles in length, and two in width. These hills are all volcanic cones; and, with the exception of four or five, consisting of trachyte, they are made up of scorice, blocks of lava, lapillo, and pozzolana, with occasional masses of domite and granite. Their ele vation from their base, varies from 500 to 1000 feet. They are covered with thin herbage, and partially with forests of beech. Their lavas have deposited over a considerable extent of surface, irregular masses of scoriform rock', suggesting the idea of a 'black and stormy sea of viscid matter' arrested and fixed in the moment of its wildest commotion. In the midst rises the giant of the chain', the lofty Puy de Dome. The Mont