This subject cannot be quitted without the ob servation, that there seems a most manifest indication of MIND and DESIGN, or in other words of a great Creator, in the peculiar distribution of this metal in the northern parts of Europe; where He knew, to whom all times are present, that it would be necessary for the industry of the inhabitants. In like manner the increased thickness of the fur, or of the feathery down of animals, can scarcely be attributed to climate or chance: not to add another simple observation, but which does not seem to have been made, namely, the superior size and strength of the female, when compared with the male, solely among the birds of prey; as it was necessary that she should both protect and feed her voracious offspring.

Transitive.

THIS division includes the rocks which Distinct from suddenly pass from one to another, so that specimens may sometimes even appear in cabinets; while the Transitive rocks commonly occur in a slow and scarcely visible progress; the term implying, in Werner's system, those intermediate between the Primitive and Secondary. The suddenness

Distinct from
Adherent.

of the transition has given rise to the denomination, which implies that the substance has leaped, as it were, from one to another.

These rocks are extremely interesting in the study of Geology; and the learned reader will observe, that this treatise forms a gradual introduction to that sublime science, or rather study; for, even in the German sense of Geognosy, or knowledge of the shell of the earth, it can scarcely ever be supposed to arrive at the perfection of a science.

Great care must be exerted not to confound the rocks which are merely adherent, or composite, with those that really graduate into another. Saussure, in speaking of a Russian traveller, says, that he would have boldly asserted that a roasting goose graduates into the spit. Thus some theorists have conceived that lime becomes flint, or flint graduates into lime, from the mere mixture of the particles near the line of their junction. The most proper and undoubted graduations occur only among

the kindred rocks; and are generally a mere variation of the Mode or Structure; as the passage from granite to gneiss, or from granite to granitic porphyry. If the granite be surcharged with siderite, and its particles become very small, it may pass into the real basalt of the ancients; but can never become a basaltin interspersed with chrysolite or zeolite; and if the basaltin occur with granite, it must be merely adherent. Keralite may, by imbibing iron from the atmospheric air, or whatever cause, become jasper. Werner has observed, that wacken passes into clay on one hand, and basaltin on the other; which last again passes into basalton or grunstein. Many other undoubted transitions may be observed; but it will suffice to enumerate some of the most remarkable, leaving the others to time and accurate observation.

NOME I. SIDERITE AND BASALT.*

This transition may be observed in the Egyptian monuments, and is not uncommon in nature, when, in the German language, the massive hornblende rock passes into grunstein; or, in other words, becomes interspersed with small crystals of felspar; the common basalt of the ancients.

Siderite with basalt, from Egypt.

The same, from Mount Sinai.
The same, from the Alps.

NOME II. BASALTIN AND BASALT, OR
BASALTON.

That is, in the German dialect, Basalt passing into Grunstein. Daubuisson observed this Of Meisner. transition, in great perfection, at Mount Meisner, in Hessia, which rises like a colossus above the other heights of that country. The mass is of shelly limestone; towards the top there are

* The vague words with or and are used, because it cannot be positively affirmed which graduates into the other. ↑ Sur les basaltes de la Saxe, p. 59.