It was long ere the distinct nature and legitimate objects of geology…

the extension of the sea had been greater at some former periods

Pallas, in more recent times, has drawn the same inference.

important changes had taken place

in the form of the coasts of Asia, and

The first who endeavored to draw a clear line of demarcation between these distinct departments, was Hutton, who declared that geology was in no ways concerned with 'questions as to the origin of things.

This doctrine, it is true, had been laid down in terms almost equally explicit by Strabo, to explain the occurrence of fossil shells in the interior of continents, and to that geographer, and other writers of antiquity, Hooke frequently …