"Let us take a Survey of the principal Fabrick, viz. the Terraqueous Globe itself; a most stupendous work in every particular of it, which doth no less aggrandize its Maker than every curious complete work doth its Workman. Let us cast our eyes here and there, let us ransack all the Globe, let us with the greatest accuracy inspect every part thereof, scarch out the inmost secrets of any of the creatures, let us examine them with all our gauges, measure them with our nicest rules, pry into them with our microscopes and most exquisite instruments, still we find them to bear testimony to their infinite Workman." DERHAM'S PHYSICO-THEOLOGY, BOOK II. p. 38. "Could the body of the whole Earth - - be submitted to the Examination of our Senses, were it not too big and disproportioned for our Enquiries, too unwieldy for the Management of the Eye and Hand, there is no question but it would appear to us as curious and well-contrived a frame as that of an human body. We should see the same Concatenation and Subserviency, the same Necessity and Usefulness, the same Beauty and Harmony in all and every of its Parts, as what we discover in the Body of every single Animal." SPECTATOR, NO. 543. CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH AND READER IN GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY IN THE IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. PHILADELPHIA : CAREY, LEA AND BLANCHARD. ΤΟ 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, Christ Church, Oxford, May 30, 1836. WILLIAM BUCKLAND. |