The transition and flœtz-rocks also are much more of a chemical or crystalline nature than has been generally imagined. Even sandstone, one of the most abundant of the flœtz-rocks, occasionally occurs in masses, many yards in extent, which individually have a tabular or stratified structure; but, when viewed on the great scale, appear to be great massive distinct concretions. These massive concretions, with their subordinate tabular structures, if not carefully investigated, are apt to bewilder the mineralogist, and to force him to have recourse to a general system of subsidence or elevation of the strata, in order to explain the phenomena they exhibit. NOTE C, p. 13. DELUGE. There are many facts, some of which are recorded in the Bible, that are hostile to Cuvier and De Luc’s opinions stated in the text, viz. that the bed of the ocean was changed at the flood, or last great catastrophe; and that the land, formerly occupied by animals, was henceforth given up to fishes and other marine tribes. We are told, for example, that the dove, which was sent forth from the ark, found an olive-tree, whence it plucked a leaf, to carry back to the patriarch, as a proof that the waters of the deluge were subsiding; and we also find that the Assyrian rivers, which originally marked the situation of Eden, retained the same geographical relations after the earth had been repeopled. The natural history of the fossil organic remains contained in alluvial deposits, is also in opposition to the opinion of De Luc. NOTE D, p. 19. FORMATION OF PRIMITIVE MOUNTAINS. Mitscherlich, in a memoir read before the Royal Academy of Berlin, but not yet published, enters fully into the illustration of the igneous origin of mountains, especially those of the primitive class, deducible from his experiments on the formation of minerals by fusion. As the view is interesting, we shall here give a short sketch of it.