ttempt to build upon it the system of a world.

That strata may exist, whether at the bottom of the sea, or any other
where, without being consolidated, will hardly be disputed; for, they
are actually found consolidated in every different degree. But, when
strata are found consolidated, at what time is it that we are to suppose
this event to have taken place, or this accident to have happened to
them?--Strata are formed at the bottom of water, by the subsidence or
successive deposits of certain materials; it could not therefore
be during their formation that such strata had been consolidated;
consequently, we must necessarily _conclude_, without any degree of
_supposition_, that _strata had existed at the bottom of the sea
previous to their consolidation_, unless our author can show how they
may have been consolidated previous to their existing.

This then is what our author has termed a gratuitous supposition of
mine, and which, he adds, "is a circumstance which will not be allowed
by the patrons of the aqueous origin of stony substances, as we have
already seen."--I am perfectly at a loss to guess at what is here
alluded to _by having been already seen_, unless it be that which I have
already quoted, concerning things which have been never seen, that
is, _those interior parts of the earth which were originally a solid
mass_.--I have hardly patience to answer such reasoning;--a reasoning
which is not founded upon any principle, which holds up nothing
but chimera to our view, and which ends in nothing that is
intelligible;--but, others, perhaps, may see this dissertation of our
author's in a different light; therefore, it is my duty to analyse the
argument, however insignificant it may seem to me.

I have minutely examined all the stratified bodies which I have been
able, during a lifetime, to procure, both in this country of Britain,
and from all the quarters of the globe; and the result of my inquiry has
been to conclude, that there is nothing among them in an original state,
as the reader will see in the preceding chapter. With regard again to
the masses which are not stratified, I have also given proof that they
are not in their original state, such as granite, porphyry, serpentine,
and basaltes; and I shall give farther satisfaction, I hope, upon that
head, in the course of this work. I have therefore concluded, That there
is nothing to be found in an original state, so far as we see, in the
construction of this