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continents? A conjecture this," says he, markably confirmed by the vast number of fossil shells, and other marine exuviæ found imbedded near the tops of mountains, and the interior parts of continents, remote from the sea, in all parts of the world. Hence mountains and con tinents were not primary productions of nature, but of a very distant period from the creation. of the world, a time wherein the strata had acquired their greatest degree of cohesion and firmness; and at a time, in which the testaceous matter of marine shells was become changed to a stony substance; for I have frequently observed in the fissures of lime-stone strata,' proceeds this philosopher, "fragments of the same shell adhering to each side of the clift. Some of the postdiluvian mountains, we know to be upwards of three geographical miles, or 19,026 feet above the level of the sea; whereas we cannot suppose the antediluvian hills to be more than forty or fifty feet perpendicular height above it, since they were formed by the action of the tides, as sand banks are formed in the ocean." Mr. Whitehurst afterwards goes on to the exemplification of his data, and in so doing discovers a very accurate knowledge of mineralogy, and of the peculiar properties of the several strata of which the surface of the earth

earth is composed but still it is not possible to subscribe to his general doctrine. For, why, for instance, must the world have been created either absolutely solid, or absolutely fluid? Why might it not have been created partly one and partly the other, as is evidently its state at present? Or why should we admit that the loftiest of the antediluvian hills could not have been more than fifty feet in elevation? Such assertions as these are too arbitrary to be implicitly ac quiesced in; nor in fact are they upon any principle of reason to be supported, although they afford their author an opportunity of displaying much information and ingenuity.

This theory of Mr. Whitehurst is altogether, you will perceive, in opposition to those which had preceded him, if we except only in some instances that of Monsieur Le Cat. But a vitreous or a turbid fluidity; a world formed from a mass of burning matter, or from a mass of muddy and heterogeneous particles; each and all are far from affording a satisfactory explanation of the manner in which the God of Nature effected a creation. We might with equal propriety admit of the idea of the celebrated Doctor Halley, who, in attempting to account for the variations of the magnetic needle, by reason of a loose internal

ternal nucleus within the earth, conjectured that the world we live upon, might have another habitable world within it, surrounded by a system of subterraneous luminaries, similar to those which give light to the upper earth, but comprehended within a smaller sphere.

Next comes the theory, and I believe it is the latest that has been published, of a naturalist of eminent abilities, Doctor Hutton. His general system may be comprised in these four propositions. 1st, That all our rocks and strata have been formed by subsidence under the waters of a former ocean, from the decay and waste of a former earth, carried down to the sea by land floods. 2d, That these submarine rocks and strata were heated to the degree of fusion by subterraneous fire, while emersed under the waters of the ocean; by which heat and fusion the lax and porous sediment was consolidated, perfectly cemented, and all the cavities filled up by the melted matter, while the whole mass was in a state of fusion. 3d, That the rocks and strata, so formed and consolidated under the waters of the ocean, were afterwards inflated and forced up from under water by the expansive power of the subterraneous fire, to the height of our habitable earth, and of the loftiest moun

tains upon the surface of the globe. 4th, That these operations of nature, namely, the decay and waste of the old land, the forming and consolidation of new land under the waters of the ocean, and the change of the strata now forming under water for future dry land, are a progressive work, which always did, and always will go on in a perpetual succession, forming world after world.

In this theory, Doctor Hutton wisely steers clear of a rencounter with the sun; which it had been well for his predecessors if they had avoided also; and I, in glancing at his theory, will attempt to be equally prudent, and neither give a conjecture at a solar shock, nor inquire whether the center of the earth be a solid or fluid, light or heavy, dense or rare, hot or cold. I have no business with what I cannot examine. The superficies of this planet is all that is given to my inspection. Doctor Hutton, however, treads rather too much in the steps of Buffon on the one side, and of Moro on the other; and gives too implicitly into the belief of the eternity of the world; notwithstanding, he is satisfactory and perspicuous in many parts of his system. For instance, the decomposition and waste of the surface of the rocks and strata of moun

tains and cavernous shores, and the formation of strata under the waters of the ocean, are points which are to me evident, and which I shall have occasion to insist upon largely hereafter.

At the same time, I confess, I am far from being inclined to say, that the earthy matter, borne down by the floods, is not frequently thrown back upon the shores, into bays and creeks, and into the mouths of rivers, where it forms deltas, and in many instances, enlarges the bounds of the dry land. The Ganges, the Indus, the Nile, and various celebrated rivers, prove it. But with the wrecks of the earth in general, together with the aid of similar earth at the bottom of the ocean, I am greatly mistaken if we shall not find that that which is, might have had a submarine formation, and that which may be, may naturally be supposed to have a like progression. But, in regard to the doctrine of the consolidation of our rocks and strata, while under the waters of the ocean, by the heat and fusion of subterraneous fire, such hypothesis is too slenderly supported by phænomena, to be easily adopted. The very reverse would more probably appear to have been the case; for fire is not wanted for the consolidation of the parts

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