all hereafter refer. All the
four higher series of strata show, in the most evident manner, that
their formation has been due to the action of water; the grauwacke is,
perhaps, the only rock that exists among them, in which the question
could, even on simple inspection of specimens, appear doubtful; but this
rock lies at the base of the old red sandstone, and upon the limestone
of the submedial order, or transition, as it is styled by the
Wernerians, and is equally regular in its stratification with either; we
cannot, therefore, admit any other cause of its formation than what is
common to them.

Some of these strata are obviously mechanical, others chemical deposits;
thus, the sandstones and conglomerates are certainly the products of the
disintegration of older rocks by a violent abrasion of running water,
and have settled when the currents have ceased to flow; all calcareous
rocks, except the limestones of the inferior or fifth order, the
primitive of Werner, on the other hand, appear to have been products of
chemical precipitation; while there are a few cases, as in the beds of
rock salt, where the deposit must have been due to evaporation.

Of all these rocks and formations, the primitive, as has already been
stated, and the sandstones, are wholly devoid of organic remains. And
even the last rule is to be received as not wholly free from exception;
for vegetable impressions have been found, as we are credibly informed,
in sandstone, at Nyack on the Hudson, and near Belleville in New-Jersey,
besides some other similar cases we shall hereafter note. All the other
strata present a greater or less abundance of the traces of the organic
kingdoms, from the slate, which lies lowest of the fourth order, to the
most recent beds of the tertiary, and to so much of the diluvium as has
been examined in the old continent. And although in the isolated case of
the diluvium at New-York, no fossil remains have been found, we are yet
unprepared to admit this as more than an exception, and are inclined to
think that the remains of the mastodon, for instance, must be diluvian,
or pre-diluvian. In this opinion, however, we know that we are opposed
by high authority, and therefore do not express it without hesitation.

"Organized fossil remains belong to three different classes:
the remains that have preserved their natural state, at least
in part; petrifactions; and impressions.

"The remains of the first class ar