CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO NATURAL THEOLOGY BY THE REV. WILLIAM BUCKLAND, D.D. CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH AND READER IN GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY TO. DAVIES GILBERT, ESQ. D.C. L. (BY DIPLOMA), F. R.S., HON. M. R.S. E., HON. M. R.I.A., F. S. A., F. L.S., F. G.S., F. R. A.S., ETC. ETC. MY DEAR SIR, I ONLY fulfil a gratifying duty in dedicating to you the present Essay, which owes its existence principally to your favourable opinion of my ability to discharge the trust confided to me. To have been thus selected for such a service, is a distinction which I prize, as one of the most honourable results of my devotion of many years to the study of the mineral structure of the Earth. I fear, however, that your estimate of my qualifications has been raised above my deserts, by your affectionate regard for the University, with which it has been our common happiness to be so long connected. Whatever other results may have attended my public exertions in this place, I assure you that it is a source of much satisfaction to me, to find them thus rewarded by the approbation of a Philosopher, whose attainments placed him in the chair once occupied by Newton, and who is endeared by his urbanity to all, who have ever enjoyed the happiness of communication with him, either as the President of the Royal Society of London, or in that more familiar intercourse of private friendship to which it has been my privilege to be admitted. Believe me to remain, My dear Sir, Your much obliged and faithful Servant, WILLIAM BUCKLAND. Christ Church, Oxford, May 30, 1836. PREFACE. THREE important subjects of enquiry in Natural Theology come under consideration in the present Treatise. The first regards the inorganic Elements of the Mineral Kingdom, and the actual dispositions of the Materials of the Earth: many of these, although produced or modified by the agency of violent and disturbing forces, afford abundant proofs of wise and provident Intention, in their adaptations to the uses of the Vegetable and Animal Kingdoms, and especially to the condition of Man. The second relates to Theories which have been entertained respecting the Origin of the World; and the derivation of existing systems of organic Life, by an eternal succession, from preceding individuals of the same species; or by gradual transmutation of one species into another. I have endeavoured to show, that to all these Theories the phenomena of Geology are decidedly opposed. The third extends into the Organic Remains of a former World the same kind of investigation, which Paley has pursued with |