Scientific Department.

A Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaic Geologies. By GRANVILLE PENN, Esq.

(Concluded.)

Mr. Penn in the third part of his work, proceeds to examine the mode of the universal changes or revolutions which the mineral substance of the earth has undergone since the creation, and whether the evidences of revolution correspond with the statements of the sacred record, and are sufficiently accounted for by it; or whether the mineral geology has found evidences of revolution not reducible to those stated in the record." Of the Mosaic Deluge he gives this very ingenious and plausible

account.

That

"We cannot fail to perceive that a repetition of the same process which produced the former earth was alone requisite to bring to light another earth to replace it. We have already seen that a violent disruption and subsidence of the solid surface of one portion of the subaqueous globe produced at first a bed to receive the diffusive waters; and that these waters drawn into that bed from off the other portion of the same globe, left it exposed and fitted for the reception of vegetation, and for the habitation of man. exposed portion was now in its turn to sink and disappear. similar disruption and subsidence of its surface, which should depress it below the level of the first depressed part or basin of the sea, the waters flowing into a still lower level, would leave their basin empty, exposed and dry, and thus by a similar separation render it in its turn a habitable earth :-thus that first depressed part or basin of the former sea is our actual present earth."

By a

Our author then proceeds to shew that the general phenomena of the earth may be satisfactorily referred either, 1. to the creation; 2. the first revolution; 3. the long interval that succeeded it, during which the sea remained in its primitive basin; or 4. to the second revolution. To the first cause belong the sensible characters and diversities of all primitive rocks and soils; to the second, those of their dislocatio

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ture, and dispersion; to the third, the water-worn appearance of the larger and smaller fragments of rocks and stones, and the moulding of the loose soil over the solid substrata, as well as the vast accumulations of marine substances. Lastly, to the second revolution, the excavation of valleys in secondary soils; the heaping up of marine mineral masses; the secondary rocks, and the confused mixture of the organic terrestrial fragments, once a part of the furniture of the earth that perished, are as evidently to be referred.

Of the natural agencies employed by the Almighty in the two great revolutions, our author supposes earthquakes and volcánoes to have been the most probable, arguing very justly that the limited effects attending them now, prove nothing as to what they might accomplish when rendered general within the globe, and acting simultaneously against its solid crusts.

1

The circumstance that organic remains are found in great abundance in situations far remote from their natural localities, the inhabitants of the torrid zone in the most northerly latitudes, and rice versa, is shewn to afford no proof that they either lived or died there, and therefore none for the revolution in the nature of animals or the climates of the earth, which are deemed necessary by the mineral geology. Mr. Penn has drawn his arguments on this subject from the rate, the course, and the effects of the currents now observed in the ocean; and also from a number of interesting facts, which we cannot at present notice.

None of the enquiries of Geology are passed over, but all receive an acute and candid discussion. Such are, the absence of human organic remains; the mixture of strata containing marine, with those containing terrestrial exuviæ; the formation of mountains and valleys, and the courses of rivers; the forma tion of coal, &c.

In the remaining portion of the work, our author ascribes the covering of the new earth with vegetation after the second revolution, to a fresh and immediate act of God; and infers, from the olive-leaf brought by the dove to Noah, that it was

created in full and perfect maturity. He supposes it probable, also, that new animal species were at the same time created to supply the place of those which it was the will of God to destroy utterly by the deluge. He then concludes, from the general result of the preceding inquiry, that the numerous revolutions assumed by the mineral geology are the offspring of defective investigation and unregulated fancy," and are all reducible to those two only which are recorded in the Mosaic history; and that in the second question, "relative to the changes which this globe has undergone since its first formation, and to the mode by which those changes were effected, the Mosaic geology has maintained the superiority over the mineral, which it established in the first question relative to the mode by which that first formation was produced." A code of general principles," which may at all times guide our view in contemplating the phenomena apparent in the globe, and secure us against the fascination of unsubstantial theories," fol. lowed by some valuable general reflections, closes the work.

The principal features of the work appear to be, the inference the author deduces from the sacred record, of two distinct revolutions, or periods of destruction, of the surface of the earth: his mode of reconciling the accounts of the creation of light on the first day, and the sun's visible appearance on the fourth the reasons why fossil remains of some animals are found in climates uncongenial to their natures, and of others whose spécies are utterly extinct; as well as why fossil human bones have never been found at all. The ingenuity, too, with which he proves the incompetence of mere physical phenomena to decide on the mode of first formations, is extremely striking, as well as many other parts of the work, which we have not room to enumerate. Our author's claims to a high rank as a scholar are evident throughout: his criticisms on the sacred text, in the second part, evince a perfect knowledge of the Hebrew, as well as of the classical languages; and his remarks on Deluc's hypothesis of the indefinite period of the Mosaic days of creation, and Saussure's nonsensical rhapsody

from the summit of Etna, vindicate his pretensions as a sound and formidable critic.

HYDRAULIC ORRERY.

Mr. Busby has recently opened an exhibition of an invention of his, the Hydraulic Orrery, which has excited considerable attention among the lovers of astronomy and of general science. The object of Mr. Busby's invention is not only to shew the various positions of the heavenly bodies at the different periods of their revolutions, but to produce a self-acting machine, that should imitate those silently gliding and harmoniaus movements which characterize the planetary revolutions. To effect these points, Mr. Busby has provided a circular reservoir, five feet in diameter, in the centre of which a floating vessel bears the sun, elevated considerably from the surface of the fluid; this vessel is made to revolve by the re-active impulse of water discharged in a minute lateral stream from a siphon. The earth and moon are also borne at equal elevations by floating vessels, and are similarly moved, excepting only the introduction of such mechanical modifications as were necessary to produce the parallelism of the changing nodes of the moon's orbit. ultimately performs the annual orbit by means of a larger reacting siphon, which carries off the water previously used to effect the other movements. This apparatus, which is situated in the centre of the room, is purposely confined to the elucidation of the motions of the three bodies most interesting to us, viz. the sun, the earth, and the moon; but another machine, which equally deserves notice, imitates, in silent but perpetual harmony, the motions of Jupiter and his satellites. This is also a floating apparatus; but the most curious circumstances attending it are, that the whole is moved by a stream of rarefied air, produced by one small lamp, and that this lamp is so contrived as to impart a rotatory motion over a surface of wa

earth's axis, and the The whole apparatus

ter three feet in diameter, which being communicated to four floating rings, bearing the satellites, they are made to revolve at their proper distances about the primary and with velocities regularly diminishing, as in nature, and doubtless from similar mechanism. This invention has been honoured with a gold medal from the Society of Arts, and with a testimonial from some leading scientific characters, among whom are Drs. Hutton Gregory, and Kelly, and Messrs. Throughton, and T, and F. Bramah.-Investigator.

BOTANY.

Plants in flower, in the Mission Garden, in the month of Febru

ary.

Monandria Monogynia.-Canna indica,-coccinea-nepalensis,-coccinea var. maculata,-glauca,-limbata. Lopezia mexicana.

Diandria Monogynia.--Jasminum Zambac,--hirsutum, -pubescens,arborescens,-grandiflorum,--elongatum,

lanceolarium,-bracteatum,-attenuatum. Justicia thyrsiflora, -nasuta,--speciosa,--Careyana, tinctoria,-chinensis, Adhatoda,-decussata,-Gratiola grandiflora,--integrifolia,— serrata. Calceolaria pinnata. Stachytarpheta prismatica,jamaciensis,-mutabilis.

Triandria Monogynia--Hesperantha cinnamomea. Sparaxis grandiflora, two varieties. Ixia polystachia. Tritonia capensis,crocata,-lineata,-longiflora. Gladiolus gracilis, -segetum. Antholyza æthiopica. Morea edulis,-collina. Iris sibirica. Sisyrynchium bermudianum.-micranthus. Commelina cælestis.

Tetrandria Monogynia.-Spermacoce tenuior. Ixora coccinea,-Bandhuca,-alba,-rosea.

Pentandria Monogynia.—Heliotropium indicum. Lithosper. mum officinale. Convolvulus gangeticus,--blandus,-—purpureus,-bicolor, Ipomea sepiarea,-phoenicia. Plumbago