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    Buekland's Geology . 277

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    are likewise very distinct . Although these footsteps are thus abundant in Corn Cockle Muir , no trace whatever has been found of the bones of the animal whose feet they represent . "—Vol . i , p . 260 . We shall conclude our extracts with one in which a serene grandeur of description is blended with a profound sentiment worthy of being written in letters of gold in the highest temples of humane philosophy : —

    " The historian or the antiquary may have traversed the field of ancient and modern battles ; and may have pursued the line of march of triumphant conquerors , whose armies trampled down the most mighty kingdoms of the world . The winds and storms have utterly obliterated the ephemeral impressions of their course . Not a track remains of a single foot , or a single hoof , of all the countless millions of men and beasts whose progress spread desolation over the earth . But the reptiles , that crawled upon the half-finished surface of our infant planet , have left memorial of their passage enduring and indelible . No history has recorded their creation or destruction ; their very bones are found no more among the fossil relics of a former world . Centuries and thousands of years may have rolled away between the time in which these footsteps were impressed by tortoises upon the sands of their native Scotland , and the hour when they are again laid bare and exposed to our curiou 3 and admiring eyes . Yet we behold them , stamped upon the rock , distinct as the track of the passing animal upon the recent snow ; as if to show that thousands of years are but as nothing amidst eternity—and as it were in mockery of the fleeting , perishable course of the mightiest potentates among mankind . "—p . 261 .

    The subject of this work contains its own inherent poetry ; and the noble simplicity of the author ' s style effects , in many of the finest passages , the complete and spiritualized union of poetry with science . He first shows us the globe as a nebula in space ; and next , from her mass of fluid materials , drawing forth the crystalized rocks , whereof the solid foundation of the present crust of the earth is formed . " Then follows the period when fiery streams of melted matter would burst through- the thin shell of the infant world ; wfoen torrents of rain and the turbulent sea were wont to wash away vast portions of dry land ; when dense vapours hung for ever in the air , concealing the sun , and wrapping the earth with darkness as with a inantle . " Dr Buckland admits , as , indeed , his geological researches compel him , that the earth has existed many thousands of years anterior to the Mosaic account of creation , as * at present translated . In order , therefore , to make Science agree with Scripture , hepives a new translation and new interpretation wherever he sees the change necessary to an orthodox coincidence . It is only justice to say that he accomplishes this arduous task in a most learned , ingenious , and unsatisfactory manner . The reconciling theories of other geologists he refutes , as may be expected , very clearly . Proceeding in his account of the animal

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 1, 1837, page 277, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1831/page/22/