Earths, >173 



hardness or softness of the strata. The abrupt 

 rocks which we see in many parts seem to have 

 been composed of an adventitious mixture of dif- 

 ferent strata, which have resisted the injuries of 

 time with unequal force. 



This is a general view of the materials of 

 which this globe is composed. A variety of 

 hypotheses have been adopted to account for it. 

 In general, it has been supposed that the strata 

 originally lay horizontally, and were formed by 

 a deposition from water. The arguments for 

 this opinion are forcible. The relics of a variety 

 of substances, which we now find only possessing 

 the watery parts of the globe, are found in rocks 

 and mountains at a very great distance from the 

 sea. In strata of limestone, often very distant 

 from the sea, we find the remains of shells, &c. 

 the production of the ocean. Other circum- 

 stances prove that the sea has covered parts of 

 the earth, which are now at a great distance from 

 it, and that the various directions which the strata 

 now have were not their direction at their first 

 formation. 



Some have attributed this irregularity to fre- 

 quent earthquakes ; others have imagined, that 

 the globe before the deluge contained an im- 

 mense body of water, covered over with a crust 

 of earth, which at the deluge was broken in 

 pieces and sunk in the waters ; others, in a more 

 extraordinary manner, have thought that the 

 earth in its revolutions has some time or other 



