passage of the Introduction to my Tra. vels in England, but I shall explain it after having copied that passage, in which I said, "I shall not attempt to relate all my observations in this country, where I have resided since the year 1773. Whenever I have had occasion to travel through any part of it, I have always been attentive to the geological phenomena which presented themselves to my view; but, as my object at first was only to examine whether any of the circumstances of those phenomena were either new to me, or contrary to the ideas which I had formed in other places, I seldom committed my observations to writing, or at most, I took very short notes of them. It was the work of Professor Playfair, which made me sensible in how great a degree precise and numerous details were necessary for the determination of true general phenomena; and, the observations of that gentleman having been confined to this island, I became desirous to study it with more attention, and especially to follow him to some of the places to which he had referred."

This is the reason why Mr. Farey has found that I have manifested an earnest desire to sift into the truth and correct ness of Professor Playfair's observations; but he could not know that, among the various parts of England which I had ob served with great attention, was his own field, in and near Derbyshire. I have luckily found the notes which I made in that journey, containing numerous details, because the country interested me very much. I shall first trace the road which I followed from Birmingham, be cause I shall have occasion to refer to several places.

This journey was in August 1787. From Birmingham I went to Walsall, Four-Crosses, Newcastle, Etruria, Congleton, to Liverpool. Thence I came to Macclesfield, and entered Derbyshire by Buston; I came down to Ashford, ascended some way in that valley, and returned to Bakewell and Matlock. I came out of Derbyshire by Derby, and entered Leicestershire, passing by Lough borough and Leicester. Thus, having observed the same field as Mr. Farey, I may say, that I have never seen any description of a mountainous country more accurate than that he has given of this, in the Philosophical Transactions; but it is a very small spot on the surface of the earth, in comparison of the extent of my observations, and also of those of

M. de Saussure, in mountains comparatively to which those of Derbyshire are like mole-hills. Mr. Farey might have seen, in my Elementary Treatise on Geology, many descriptions of parts of the Alps and Mount Jura, as exact as the greatness of the objects could permit, which I have opposed to Professor Playfair, as precisely as those in England; and I hope Mr. Farey will find the same exactness in the descriptions of great chains of mountains in Germany, France, and Switzerland, forming two volumes of my Geological Travels anterior to those in England, of which I had postponed the publication, to answer Mr. Playfair on his own ground. But these travels are now in the press, and will be soon published at Messrs. Rivingtons". I shall often refer to them, though yet unpublished, because my system had been formed on the facts which will be found in them, and has been only cou firmed by my observations in England.

I must add, that Mr. Farey's own description of Derbyshire and the adja cent countries, affords also a complete confirmation of this part of my system, that the derangement observed in our strata, proceeds from ruptures, angular motions, and partial subsidences. Only he calls lifts, the parts now the highest without, however, assigning the cause which has raised these parts: while I consider the lowest parts as having sunk, and I have assigned the cause of those events. This will be the subject of examination in the sequel.

The organic remains in our strata are a great geological phenomenon, on which consequently Mr. Farey insists much i he opposes its particulars both to Com mon Sense and to me. I shall succes sively copy his propositions on this sub. ject, replying to those which relate to my system.

This begins at p. 514, where he says, "1. That each species of these bodies has some particular bed or stratum, of indefinite extension, to which it is peculiar, and of which it forms a character, either alone, or in mixture with other species, not less important, and often more so, than the mineralogical or che nical qualities of such stratum or imbed. ding substance."

I cannot say any thing particular in that respect concerning Derbyshire, and the adjacent countries, the field of Mr. Farey's observations; as there I fixed my attention only on the dislocations and inclinations of the strata, and the

external

ticular mention is made by Moses, before any dry land appeared.' This, I may be permitted to say, and I shall show hereafter, is an assumption, of which he gives no proof, either from natural history, or from the words of Genesis; but he places here a note, which, after having copied it, I shall examine. "Who shall presume to say, that the same creative power which, at the finish of His work of creation, in a comparatively short period, brought into existence, or created, all the spe cies of organic beings, who, by the innate power, have propagated, through their generations, to the present day, upon the surface of our planet, in the air and in the waters, did not create each of these prior and successive subaqueous races of organic beings, whose remains are imbedded within it; and also successively create, or give, the present form, by modes of combination now unknown, to the fluid and to the solid and inorganic matter of each stratum, during the periods marked by these organic existences, or between them, where strata occur, holding no reliquia, which are numerous, and, of most kinds of substances, crystalized masses in particular? Are any parts of these suggestions more unphilosophical than that He created separate masses or mountains of quartz, and other substances now found in grains in the strata: which masses, by unknown causes, are pretended to have been broken down into such small and uniform grains; and certain masses of other substances, which, by means alike inexplicable, have been ground into powder or paste, for cementing the grains, or forming homogeneous minerals?"

I have copied so far this note, in order to show, that it is not to me that Mr. Farey opposes the preceding ideas; it is to the Huttonian system. As for me, I shall first say in general, that I shall never presume to maintain any thing contrary to the foundation of our faith, with respect to the creation, which is the book of Genesis. But that book does not imply, as he thinks, that the creation was a short period; which idea has occasion ed his embarrassment in determining the time during which it was possible that organic remains should be imbedded in some of our strata. If he had given a sufficient attention to all the parts of my answer to Common Sense, he would have seen the proofs, that it is only by a misconception of the sense of the word day in that chapter, that the six days,

with the seventh following, have been supposed to constitute one of our present weeks. I have given demonstrative proofs, that in this first chapter, the word day implies only a period of undetermined length; and that therefore, "the earth may have existed a great many ages before God created man.”

"

On this subject 1 referred also to my letters to Professor Blumenbach, in the British Critic; in which I have detailed the operations that took place in each of these periods; following in that respect the successive effects of known. causes. These I have distinguished by their characters, the strata formed before the existence of any organic being; or, at least, containing none of their remains. These strata are probably those which Mr. Farey calls chrystalised, such as granite, porphyry, micaceous schisti, and other contemporaries. There I have fixed the period in which organic beings began to exist, indicated by their remains imbedded in strata, very different from those which had preceded; and I have explained the cause of some species of organic bodies being extinct, and many having changed their appearance. Thus there is no need of a continued creation: each species first created continued to propagate, till some be came extinct; and many were altered in their appearance, by the changes in the medium in which they lived, either water or air; changes of which I have as. signed the cause.

I now return to the text of Mr. Farey's paper, and first to page 515, where he says, "If this view of the subject be correct, the alternation of land and sea, or of fresh water and marine animals and vegetables in the earth, has ne foundation; and the very ground-work of your correspondent's new theory" (meaning Common Sense)" is overturned; and the existence of tropical animals and plants in high latitudes is also alike unfounded."

I certainly shall not defend the theory of Common Sense; but, with respect to the alternate fresh water and marine remains, and those of tropical animals in high latitudes, it is for want of obser vations in various parts of the Continent, and even of England, that Mr. Farey can doubt these facts. With respect to the remains of tropical animals in high latitudes, besides many examples which I have seen on the Continent of these remains, intermixed with marine bodies, I have seen, myself, dug up in England, at Brentford, near the Thames, many

bones

bones and tusks of elephants and hippopotami, in loamy strata mixed with Ainty gravel: I have explained the cause of this phenomenon.

In general, the case of these remains of organic bodies of the animal kind, is the same as that of the remains of vegetables, which form our coal-beds, both having existed on islands in the ancient sea, while the temperature of the earth was more equal at every latitude; a change which I have also explained.

These islands sunk under the level of the sea, and were covered with new strata. The same proof is found in coalbeds; for I have seen, in many parts of England and of the Continent, that coal seams lay on strata, either of lime-stone or other kinds of stones, containing marine bodies, as the upper strata contain vegetables. Of this I have described instances on the Continent, in my travels, which soon will be published, proving, that the different coal-beds, lying on one another, with intermediate strata, proceed from successive subsidences of such islands, in the intervals of which subsidences of peat mosses, the sea covered them with new strata, as is attested by the marine bodies. But of this more hereafter, because Mr. Farey has a different opinion on the origin of coalbeds. I. A. DE Luc.

Windsor.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

MEMORANDA LUSITANICA.

Francisco Rodrigues Lobo. THE Portuguese biographers have fur nished us with very few particulars relating to the life of Lobo: all the informa tion to be obtained from them merely re cords that he was born in Leiria, and was educated for the profession of the law; and that he flourished at the commencement of the 17th century, and was drowned in the Tagus, as he was passing that river in his way from Santarem to

Lisbon.

sertation on Portuguese pastoral Poetry, Although Joaquim de Foyos, in his Disin the Memoirs published by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Lisbon in 1792*; classes Lobo with the old and sterling literature, and great praise is bestowed writers of the golden age of Portuguese upon his productions by several authors of known and acknowledged abilitiest, it is to be feared that a perusal of his works will not justify his possession of such an exalted situation. They consist of five volumes, as they have been lately reprinted, one of which is occupied by a destabre, of which the famous Nemalworthless poem, intituled, O grande Convares Pereira is the hero; another con

tains some dialogues, intituled, Corte na Aldea, possessing a superiority over his other productions; and in the remainder are printed three connected pastorals, inpieces of poetry as dull as the narrative tolerably dull, and interspersed with which they interrupt. The genius of

poetry, however, once smiled upon his

In this beau¬

inspiration he composed the following endeavours, and in a happy moment of tiful composition he has left us an ho justly celebrated sonnet. nourable monument of his name; it sesses great sweetness of expression, and is esteemed the master-piece of his poetie talents.

pos

A quem teu largo campo naō resiste, A mim trocou-me a vista, em que consiste O meu viver contente, ou descontente.