Here M. Pallas gives his reason for supposing those mountains primitive or anterior to the operations of this globe as a living world; _first_, because they have not, in general, marks of animals or plants; and that it is doubtful if they ever properly contain those marks of organised bodies; _secondly_, because many of those rocks have the appearance of having suffered the effects of the most violent fire. Now, What are those effects? Is it in their having been brought into a fluid state of fusion. In that case, no doubt, they may have been much changed from the original state of their formation; but this is a very good reason why, in this changed state, the marks of organised bodies, which may have been in their original constitution, should be now effaced. The _third_ reason for supposing those mountains primitive, is taken from the metallic veins, which are found so plentifully in these masses. Now, had these masses been the only bodies in this earth in which those mineral veins were found, there might be some species of reason for drawing the conclusion, which is here formed by our philosopher. But nothing is so common (at least in England) as mineral veins in the strata of the latest formation, and in those which are principally formed of marine productions; consequently so far from serving the purpose for which this argument was employed, the mineral veins in the primitive mountains tend to destroy their originality, by assimilating them in some respect with every other mass of strata or mountain upon the globe. _Lastly_, M. Pallas here employs an argument taken from an appearance for which we are particularly indebted to him, and by which the arguments which have been already employed in denying the originality of granite is abundantly confirmed. It has been already alleged, that granite, porphyry, and whinstone, or trap, graduate into each other; but here M. Pallas informs us that he has found the granite not only changed into porphyry, but also into the other alpine compositions. How an argument for the originality of these mountains can be established upon those facts, I am not a little at a loss to conceive. The general mineralogical view of the Russian dominions, which we have, in this treatise, may now be considered with regard to that distinction made by naturalists, of primitive, secondary, and tertiary mountains, in order to see how far the observations of this well informed naturalist shall be found to confirm the theory of the earth which has been already given, or not.