The Vedic fathers of geology

94 Tur Vepic Fatsers or Gronocy

been purely chemical, evidently antecedent to the coming into being of vitality, and pr bably, co-eval with the birth of the world itself. The secondary formations contained sand, pebbles, and organic remains as well as mechanical deposits, produced after the planet had become the habitation of plants and living beings.

Werner camenext, and he attempted to improve Lehman’s classification, by intercalating a class, distinguished by him by the name of “Transition-formation,” and inserting it between the Primitive and Secondary. Werners divisions may, therefore, be civen as follows :—

(1) Primitive. (2) Transitional. (3) Secondary. (4) Alluvial.

I may here state, that the term ‘ Transition’ was applied to the older palaeozoic strata, as indicating a transition or passage from unfossiliferous to fossiliferous conditions.

The aforesaid theory of Werner’s assumed, that the globe had been at first invested by an universal Chaotic Ocean, which held the materials of all rocks in solution. This was called the “ Neptunian Theory,” and for many years, it enjoyed much popularity.