Note 789 — Chapter V · (continued 2)

Though Hutton's Theory of the Earth was first published in 1788, the edition of 1795, which is the one I have used, contains a great number of additional illustrations of his views, and was evidently re-written. But the main features are the same; and we learn from his friend, Playfair, that ‘the great outline of his system’ was completed ‘several years’ before 1788. Life of Hutton, in Playfair's Works, vol. iv. p. 50, Edinburgh, 1822.