it was diversified then, as it is now, by pro-tuberances and depressions ?
In favor of the former opinion, may becited the authority of Stracey, Hutchinson,and many of the early writers. Believingthat the materials which constitute the so-lid crust of the globe, were deposited froma fluid menstruum, in obedience to the lawsof gravity uninfluenced by disturbing causes,they inferred, d priori, that every stratummust have been originally plane, or ra-ther concentric. The observations ofDr. Richardson a go to justify that infer-ence : for though the upper surface of su-perficial strata is continually scollopedaway, the plane forming their base, he says,continues always steady and rectilinear, andthe upper and under surfaces of those be-neath he finds invariably parallel to oneanother.
These observations, however, I appre-hend, are just only when applied to dis-tricts of inconsiderable extent. Even along