452. Another indication of the same kind, is the near approach that even the most opposite theories make, in some respects, to one another. There are so many points of contact between them, that they appear to approximate to an ultimate state, in which, however unwillingly, they must at last coincide. That ultimate form, too, which all these theories have a tendency to put on, if I am not deceived, is no other than that of the Huttonian theory. 453. The first example I shall take from the system of Saussure. It is to be regretted, that this excellent geologist has no where given us a complete account of his theory. Some of the leading principles of it are, however, unfolded in the course of his observations, and enable us to form a notion of its general outline. It was evidently far removed from the system of subterraneous heat, and seems, especially in the latter part of the author's life, to have been very much accommodated to the prevailing system of WERNER. Nevertheless, with so little affinity between their general views, Saussure and Hutton agree in that most important article which regards the elevation of the strata. Saussure plainly perceived the impossibility of the strata being formed in the vertical situations which so many of them now occupy; and he takes great pains to demonstrate this impossibility, from some facts that have been referred to above. He also believed that this elevation had been given to strata that were originally level, by a force directed upwards, or by the _refoulement_ of the beds, not by their falling in, as is the opinion of De Luc and some other of the Neptunists.