prevalent Disorders, 8$c, with Volcanic Emanations. 161 



and an earthquake consumes Korah and bis company. (Num- 

 bers, xvi. 32.) Nor need the most anxious or most jealous 

 advocate for the respect due to the Bible fear for me, when 

 I quote, in connection with the latter passage, as illustrations 

 of the subject of my speculations, what is said in the 35th and 

 46th verses of the same 16th chapter of Numbers : for whe- 

 ther the occurrences were (like the rainbow after the deluge, 

 Gen. ix. 13.) merely foreseen, and employed as ordinary phe- 

 nomena, or extraordinary phenomena occasioned for the event, 

 the statement of the historian can suffer no detriment from the 

 observation I make, that the "fire " (v. 35.) and the "plague" 

 (v. 46.), of which no mention is previously made, were con- 

 nected in some untold manner with the " earthquake." But 

 to return. There may toe conditions in which it is necessary 

 for the volcanic agency to be developed, as it were, in an un- 

 usual degree, in order to serve the general purposes of crea- 

 tion ; and, therefore, without farther question, we may safely 

 infer, that, if such be the case, it affords a sufficient explanation 

 of phenomena which the simplicity of nature leads us to attri- 

 bute to one predominant agency. Let it be always remembered 

 that, after all, our knowledge of the earth is extremely limited ; 

 but that we know more of it, perhaps, than we know of any 

 other planet. The radius of the earth is about 4000 miles 

 (3962 true), and the height of its loftiest mountain added to 

 the depth of its lowest mine may be about eight miles ; our 

 acquaintance, therefore, with the crust of the globe may be 

 compared to the first page in a book of about 500 pages ; yet 

 of this page, we cannot read one line, one wo?~d, and all we 

 really know is a single letter here and there in the scattered 

 paragraphs composing only the first page in the sealed book 

 of nature. This sentence is my defence, if geological or theo- 

 logical critics tax my conjectures with a charge of presump- 

 tion. We run no more risk in walking over a volcanic soil, 

 than the gentleman who encounters a comet at full speed, or 

 prefers being shot at by an aerolitic popgun from the moon 

 or the dogstar. If speculation in either case affect the strict 

 province of reason, it is at least evident who stands the best 

 chance of being deemed lunatic. 



Stanley Green, near Poole, Dec. 31. 1834. 



P.S. As explanatory of the principles relating to hurri- 

 canes in the foregoing and preceding papers (see VIII. 17.), I 

 add a diagram [Jig. 15.) illustrating the hurricane in New Eng- 

 land, in July, 1761 (VIII. 26. note f), which, at the same 

 time, explains all the phenomena involved, as far as regards the 

 motion of the wind, and its effects on sea and land. 



Vol. VIII. — No. 47. m 



