. * THE EARTH. 23 



however, of an objection, that fossil substances 

 are not found dissolved, he exempts them from 

 this universal dissolution, and, for that purpose, 

 endeavours to show that the parts of animals have 

 a stronger cohesion than those of minerals ; and 

 that, while even the hardest rocks may be dis- 

 solved, bones and shells may still continue entire. 

 So much for Woodward ; but of all the systems 

 which were published respecting the earth's for- 

 mation, that of Whiston was most applauded and 

 most opposed. Nor need we wonder ; for being 

 supported with all the parade of deep calculation, 

 it awed the ignorant, and produced the approba- 

 tion of such as would be thought otherwise, as it 

 implied a knowledge of abstruse learning to be 

 even thought capable of comprehending what the 

 writer aimed at. In fact, it is not easy to divest 

 this system of its mathematical garb ; but those 

 who have had leisure, have found the result of 

 our philosopher's reasoning to be this : He sup- 

 poses the earth to have been originally a comet ; 

 and he considers the history of the creation, as 

 given us in scripture, to have its commencement 

 just when it was taken by the hand of the Creator 

 to be more regularly placed as a planet in our solar 

 system. Before that time, he supposes it to have 

 been a globe without beauty or proportion ; a 

 world in disorder, subject to all the vicissitudes 

 which cornets endure : some of which have been 

 found, at different times, a thousand times hotter 

 than melted iron; at others, a thousand tunes 

 colder than ice. These alternations of heat and 

 cold, continually melting and freezing the surface 



