THEORY of the EARTH. 



found to come under the general rule of formation with the 

 reft, but as considering this part to be of no confequence in 

 forming a general rule, which fhall comprehend almoft the 

 whole, without doing it abfolutely. This excluded part confifls 

 of certain mountains and maffes of granite. Thefe are thought 

 to be ftill older in their formation, and are very rarely, at leaft, 

 found fuperincumbent on ftrata which muft be acknowledged 

 as the productions of the fea. 



HAVING thus found the greater part, if not the whole, of the 

 folid land to have been originally compofed at the bottom of the 

 fea, we may now, in order to form a proper idea of thefe 

 operations, fuppofe the whole of this fea-born land to be again 

 difperfed along the bottom of the ocean, the furface of which 

 would rife proportionally over the globe. We would thus have 

 a fpheroid of water, with granite rocks and iilands fcattered 

 here and there. But this would not be the world which we in- 

 habit ', therefore, the queftion now is, how fuch continents, as 

 we actually have upon the globe, could be erected above the le- 

 vel of the fea. 



IT muft be evident, that no motion of the fea, caufed by 

 this earth revolving in the folar fyftem, could bring about that 

 end ; for let us fuppofe the axis of the earth to be changed 

 from the prefent poles, and placed in the equinoctial line, the 

 confequence of this might, indeed, be the formation of a con- 

 tinent of land about each new pole, from . whence the fea 

 would run towards the new equator ; but all the reft of the 

 globe would remain an ocean. Some new points might be dif- 

 covered, and others, which before appeared above the furface 

 of the fea, would be funk by the rifing of the water ; but, on 

 the whole, land could only be gained fubftantially at the poles. 

 Such a fuppofltion as this, if applied to the prefent ftate of 

 things, would be deftitute of every fupport, as being incapable 

 of explaining what appears. 



BUT 



