94 HISTORY OF 



destroy the solar system, and even the fixed stars 

 themselves." These reveries generally produce 

 nothing ; for, as I have ever observed, increased 

 calculations, while they seem to tire the memory, 

 give the reasoning faculty perfect repose. 



However, as earthquakes are the most formida- 

 ble ministers of nature, it is not to be wondered 

 that a multitude of writers have been curiously 

 employed in their consideration. Woodward has 

 ascribed the cause of them to a stoppage of the 

 waters below the earth's surface, by some ac- 

 cident. These being thus accumulated, and yet 

 acted upon by fires, which he supposes still 

 deeper, both contribute to heave up the earth 

 upon their bosom. This, he thinks, accounts for 

 the lakes of water produced in an earthquake, 

 as well as for the fires that sometimes burst from 

 the earth's surface upon those dreadful occasions. 

 There are others who have supposed, that the 

 earth may be itself the cause of its own convul- 

 sions. When, say they, the root or basis of some 

 large tract is worn away by a fluid underneath, 

 the earth sinking therein, its weight occasions a 

 tremor of the adjacent pails, sometimes produc- 

 ing a noise, and sometimes an inundation of water. 

 Not to tire the reader with a history of opinions 

 instead of facts, some have ascribed them to elec- 

 tricity, and some to the same causes that produce 

 thunder. 



It would be tedious, therefore, to give all the 

 various opinions that have employed the specu- 

 lative upon this subject. The activity of the 

 internal heat seems alone sufficient to account for 



