it is known to God alone how far eventually the blessings of the gospel will be diffused in this region.

"It is most interesting to mark the new converts, to observe their diligent study of the Bible, some of them even in old age beginning to read, that they may peruse the sacred pages; to listen to them singing delightfully the praises of God, in the beautiful hymns and tunes of our Geneva brethren; to hear with what simplicity and unction they lead the prayers of the congregation when invited to do so; and, above all, to notice that 'where sin abounded, grace doth much more abound.' The habitual deportment of the converts is highly consistent; the world cannot reproach them with ill-conduct; some of their number, who had been notorious for drunkenness and other sins, are now eminent examples of temperance and holiness, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding,' reigns over the whole Church. I was exceedingly struck with the expression of countenance of many persons amongst them. There is a calm, solid happiness portrayed on their features, which no principle, no ideas, no events, however prosperous in life, nothing but the assurance of eternal glory, through the sacrifice of Christ our Redeemer, could ever produce.

"Thiers, Puy de Dome, August 5th, 1839."

"JOHN HARTLEY."

[D.]

Referred to at page 228.

UPON DR. YOUNG'S SCRIPTURAL GEOLOGY.

In perusing this book, I have been not a little grieved at the sight which it presents of a pious and amiable man, struggling to give credit and currency to opinions which, to my full conviction, cannot be supported by evidence; but the advocacy of which is likely to mislead some, and to confirm the sceptical prejudices of others. It appears a duty to offer a few observations; but to go over the whole ground which he has opened, would require a treatise of considerable length. Erroneous statements and fallacious arguments can seldom be duly examined, and refuted satisfactorily without much

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expenditure of time and labour. principal parts of the argument.

I shall select what appear the

A layer of oyster-shells, with the valves separated, and exhibiting other marks of water transport, is found in the Whitby lias, extending for many miles along the coast, and ten or twelve into the interior; and Dr. Y. lays this instance as a principal foundation for the inference of a diluvial origin to shelly beds generally; and he extends his conclusion to vertebrated animals. (p. 15.) Yet he says not a word upon a fact, of which he seems to have had a glimpse a dozen years ago,* that beds of a very peculiar and interesting bivalve, which all confess to be a stranger to the present condition of the seas, Grypha incurva, presenting the clearest evidence that the shells had never been drifted, and that the countless individuals lie, as family groups, in their native seats;—and that these beds may be traced, in the same geological position, from Whitby northward to the mouth of the Tees, and southward to the lias of Dorsetshire, and further appearing on the western coasts of Scotland, and again extensively in Germany and in France. If the worthy author could make so much of his seam of disparted oyster-shells, washed over a small piece of land, what ought he not to have concluded from the case of the opposite character, and covering an area a thousand times more extensive?

In like manner, because it is probable that some, or let us say even a large proportion, of the coal-beds, and their sandy and shaly accompaniments have been the results of transportation, he reasons as if all the coal had been formed in this manner. (pp. 10, 14.) But there are eminent geologists, who attribute only the smaller proportion of coal formations to this mode of origin; and conceive that the greater masses have been derived from trees of vast size and close contiguity, submerged in their native seats, without being removed from their place of growth, and marking their scarcely disturbed prostration by the well-known impressions, on the shale-roofs and bottoms, of their most delicate parts, which would have been greatly defaced or quite obliterated by even a little tossing and drifting. Detached pieces of trunks do indeed occur, whose denuded and broken state suggests a derivation from neighbouring high land, and whose forms and position prove them to have been accidental intruders; but

* Geol. Survey of the Yorkshire Coast, p. 242. After briefly describing the species, Dr. Y. says, "Numbers are often found clustering together. This I call a glimpse of the truth. It deserved to have been followed out."

the idea of masses of such vegetation as composes the coal-beds having floated from different quarters, and then, which must have been of necessity, irregularly and confusedly heaped together, appears to be absolutely irreconcilable with the facts exhibited in the impressions of the plants upon the shale, just now mentioned. My kind readers will give themselves pleasure and do justice to the argument by consulting the specimens of this kind in most of the Museums of Natural History, which happily are multiplied in our country. An excellent suite is in the Adelaide Gallery, presented by my young friend, Mr. Edward Charlesworth, a gentleman whose devotedness to Natural History from his very childhood has produced important results, and promises more. For this purpose, I cannot but also wish that studious attention were given to the accurate and beautiful figures in the Fossil Flora of Great Britain, by Dr. Lindley and Mr. William Hutton; and in Mr. Artis's Antediluvian Physiology. "That any considerable part of the plants which formed the beds of coal were drifted at all, appears to be highly improbable that they should have been brought by equatorial currents from the regions of the tropics, is perfectly chimerical." Fossil Flora, vol. II. Pref. p. xxi. In the same splendid work, an accumulation of facts is brought in proof of this doctrine; and to illustrate the alternations of material in the coal measures, a circumstance on which Dr. Y. lays great stress, (p. 11,) but which those eminent naturalists account for in a way which his objections do not touch. Foss. Flor. vol. III. pp. 28-35. On the other hand, Prof. Phillips deems it "the most probable view, that the plants forming coal were, with the arenaceous and argillaceous substances, swept into the sea by inundations from the land, and subsided into strata on the bed of the sea." Treatise in Lardner's Cyclop., vol. I. p. 160. But it is important to consider that this must have been from neighbouring land, probably clusters of islands overgrown by succulent trees of exceedingly great magnitude, resembling families chiefly cryptogamic, which now exist in only small species, except in hot climates, and which we have great reason to think must have flourished in an atmosphere essentially different from that which is necessary to animal life, under the existing system of creation; all of which conditions will agree with Mr. Phillips's hypothesis, understanding a very small distance of removal by the flooding off. On the contrary, Dr. Y.'s object is to establish that all this vegetation had grown in the sixteen or seventeen centuries before the deluge, and that the coal-beds are

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due to its being floated away and deposited by the diluvial waters; and his whole reasoning seems to imply the transport from considerable distances. This is the object for which he proposes his theory. But apart from all the reasons furnished by the phenomena of stratification and animal remains, those naturalists whom all reason binds us to regard as the best qualified to form a correct judgment, draw the opposite conclusion. "That the face of the globe has successively undergone total changes, at different remote epochs, is now a fact beyond all dispute; as also that, long anterior to the creation of man, this world was inhabited by races of animals to which no paral→ lels are now to be found; and those animals themselves made their appearance, after the lapse of ages, during which no warm-blooded creatures had an existence. It has been further remarked by zoologists, that the animals which first appeared in these latitudes were analogous to such as now inhabit tropical climates exclusively; and that it was only at a period immediately antecedent to the creation of the human race, that species similar to those of the existing æra began to appear in northern latitudes. Similar peculiarities have been also found to mark the vegetation of correspondent periods."Foss. Flor. I. ix. x.

"Coal,

I annex a passage from a high American authority :— being peculiarly limited in its local relations, and often contained in basins, it seems probable that it generally arose from local circumstances, with all its attendant and alternating strata of shales, sandstones, limestones, clays, iron ores, pudding-stones, &c., and, as these depositions are often repeated several times in the same coal-basin, and the mines are occasionally worked to a great depth (even to 1,200 feet, in some places in England), it is plain that no sudden and transient event, like the deluge, could have produced such deposits, although it might bury wood and trees, which, in the course of time, might approximate to the condition of lignite, or bituminized, or partially mineralized, wood, which is often found under circumstances indicating a diluvial origin." Prof. Silliman's Outline of Geology, p. 122.

The phenomena of the coal-formations have been ably argued by Mr. Murchison, in a series of considerations, which prove both the intensity of action and the long succession of periods that are marked in the structure and alterations of the crust of the earth. have the coal-fields been rendered accessible to man's use? we not shewn that many have been forced to the surface by volcanic

"How Have

CC

action; and that some have assumed a basin shape, in consequence of their margins having been thrown into that form by a number of violent upcasts of the subjacent solid masses, which, wrenched from their original position, now converge towards a common centre?" Silur. Syst. I. 574.

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Our respected author appears not seldom to fall into the besetting error of controversialists, misapprehension of the opinions which he opposes, or of some part of their relations. For example; he seems to think it a fatal objection to the doctrines generally held by geologists, that the Tertiary Strata “ occupy but a small space in the crust of the earth, yet three or four ages have been assigned to them;" that "the whole Tertiary Strata cover but a small portion of the face of our globe, and each of the four sections" [the Eocene, the Miocene, the older Pliocene, and the more recent Pliocene,] can claim but a few patches; yet to these patches a whole age is assigned!" (Pp. 19, 20.) On the scale of reason, this is much the kind of argument which infidels employ, when they object to Christianity that it is not universal. Does our objector suppose that topographical extent is a measure of duration? Is it not of the very essence of the case, that these "patches" (which, be it remarked, cover thousands of square miles in Europe and North America,) should occupy the situations which, by the laws of nature, belong to them? They consist of the wearings away and washings down of older rocks, derived from the elevations and projections of innumerable eras; and they must of necessity have been received and retained in the intervening hollows. This is one of the striking instances of the Creator's wisdom and goodness; that, by a series of slow operations, effected according to the known laws and methods of physical action, diversified results are brought to pass which are in the highest degree beneficial to the animated tribes, and preeminently to the race of man. The very processes are marked with the indications of very long periods of time, which (if I may express my humble opinion) our imaginations are more in danger of unduly contracting than of immoderately extending.

Yet, after all, Dr. Young makes a surrender of the chief position; and therefore all the other parts of the field are fairly debateable without mutual prejudice, however we may feel convinced that he has unhappily undertaken the defence of posts which cannot be maintained. He says, " Many are of opinion, that as, without contradicting Scripture, we may believe in the existence of numerous