298 ttecry of tie Earth. [Book VI. 



the only writer on this fubje&, who has united obfer* 

 vation with theory. 



With 



plains foon after came forward, and, at length, the whole glob* 

 was delivered from the waters, except the places in the loweft 

 fituations ; fo that the ocean and the feas are flill a part of the 

 ancient abyfs that have not had a place to return to. Iflands and 

 rocks are fragments of the earth's former cruft ; kingdoms and 

 continents are larger mafles of its broken fubftance ; and all thcr 

 inequalities that are to be found on the furface of the prefent earth, 

 are owing to the accidental confufion into which both earth and 

 waters were then thrown." 



' The next theorift was Woodward, who, in his Eflay towards 

 a Natural Hiftory of the Earth, which was only defigned to pre- 

 cede a greater work, has endeavoured to give a more rational 

 account of its appearances ; and was, in faft, much better furnifhed 

 ibr fuch an undertaking than any of his predeceffors, being one 

 cf the moil affiduous naturalifts of his time. His little book, there- 

 fore, contains many important fadls, relative to natural hiftory, al- 

 though his fyftem may be weak and groundlefs. 



c He begins by afierting that all terrene fubftanccs are difpofed 

 ia beds of various natures, lying horizontally one over the other, 

 fomewhat like the coats of an onion ; that they are replete with 

 ihells, and other productions of the fea : thefe {hells being found 

 in the deepeft cavities, and on the tops of the higheft mountains. 

 From thefe obfervations, which are warranted by experience, he 

 proceeds to obferve, that thefe fliells and extraneous fofltls are 

 not productions of the tarth, but are all actual remains of thofe 

 animals which they are known to refemble; that all the beds of 

 the earth lie under each other, in the order of their fpecific gra- 

 vity; and that they are difpofed as if they had been left there by 

 fubfiding waters. All thefe aflertions he affirms with much 

 earneftnefs, although daily experience contradicts him in fome 

 of them j particularly we find layers of done often over the 

 IighteH foils, and the fofteft earth under the hardeft bodies. 

 However, having taken it for granted, that all the layers of the 

 earth are found in the order of their fpecific gravity, the lighteft 

 at the top, and the heavieft next the center, he confequently 

 aiferts, and it will not improbably follow, that all the fubflance* 

 of which the earth is compofed were once in an actual Hate of 

 diffolution. This aniverfal diffolution he takes to have happened 

 at the time of the flood. He fuppofes that at that time a body 



