262 THEORY of the EARTH. 



WE now defire to know, how far thofe internal operations of 

 the globe, by which folidity and {lability are procured to the 

 beds of loofe materials, may have been alfo employed in raifing 

 up a continent of land, to remain above the furface of the fea. 



THERE is nothing fo proper for the erection of land above 

 the level of - the ocean, as an expanfive power of fufficient 

 force, applied directly under materials in the bottom of the fea, 

 under a mafs that is proper for the formation of land when 

 thus erected. The queflion is not, how fuch a power may be 

 procured ; fuch a power has probably been employed. If, 

 therefore, fuch a power mould be confident with that which 

 we found had actually been employed in preparing the erected 

 mafs ; or, if fuch a power is to be reafonably concluded as ac- 

 companying thofe operations which we have found natural to 

 the globe, and fituated in the very place where this expanfive 

 power appears to be required, we mould thus be led to perceive, 

 in the natural operations of the globe, a power as efficacious 

 for the elevation of what had been at the bottom of the fea in- 

 to the place of land, as it is perfect for the preparation of thofe 

 materials to fer.ve the purpofe of their elevation. 



IN oppofition to this conclusion, it will not be allowed to al- 

 lege, that we are ignorant how fuch a power might be exerted 

 under the bottom of the ocean ; for the prefent queflion is not, 

 what had been the caufe of heat, which has appeared to have 

 been produced in that place j but, if this power of heat, which 

 has certainly been exerted at the bottom of the ocean for confo- 

 lidating flrata, had been employed alfo for another purpofe, 

 that is, for raifing thofe flrata into the place of land. 



WE may, perhaps, account for the elevation of land, by the 

 fame caufe with that of the confolidation of flrata, already in- 

 vefligated, without explaining the means employed by nature 

 in procuring the power of heat, or fhewing from what general 

 fource of action this particular power had been derived j but, by 

 finding in fubterranean heat a caufe for any other change, be- 



fides 



