GEOLOGY. 



plants and shells ; that the subterraneous explosion?, 

 and earthquakes, breaking through the bottom of the 

 sea, not only formed banks, hills, and submarine 

 mountains of its broken parts, but also frequently 

 raised up such large portions of the beds of the ocean, 

 with its incumbent strata, as to form islands or dry 

 mountains. At certain periods, he supposed, that the 

 presence of so large a body of water would cause it 

 to break through the cavities made by previous erup- 

 tions, and at others, the violence of the subterraneous 

 explosions would be so great as to remove mountains 

 from one place to another ; while the heat of the 

 internal fires causing these explosions would be so 

 intense as to melt, calcine, or vitrify, all adjacent 

 substances. 



In 1773, Dr. William Worthington published a 

 theory, in which great learning and piety and a con- 

 siderable share of ingenuity are combined. He 

 maintained that the earth, in its primitive state, was 

 plane and uniform ; and that all mountains, and every 

 thing irregular and rugged on the surface of it, are 

 the result of the curse pronounced on the ground 

 after the Fall of Man ; that the melancholy lapse of 

 our first parents, was immediately followed by earth- 

 quakes and every species of convulsion, which pro- 

 duced these dreadful effects on the surface of our 

 earth ; that the antediluvian earth greatly abounded 

 with water, much more than at present, and that the 

 greatest quantity of it was collected round the poles ; 

 that at first the poles of the earth were perpendicular 

 to the plane of its orbit, and at right angles with the 

 plane of the equator ; that the centre of the earth 

 was then the centre of gravity ; that the deluge was 

 produced by the centre of gravity being removed 

 twenty-three degrees and a half nearer to one of the 

 poles, which led to a corresponding deviation of the 

 poles from their former position, and thus threw the 

 great body of water accumulated round them on 

 those places of the earth where little had existed 

 before, and by these means drowned them. This 

 event, he supposed, increased the irregularity of the 

 earth's surface, and produced many of those pheno- 

 mena, which so plainly establish the reality of a 

 general deluge. 



In 1778, Mr. Whitehurst published "An Inquiry 

 into the Original State and Formation of the Earth." 

 This theorist supposed, that not only our globe, but 

 the whole of the planetary system, was once in a state 

 of fluidity, and that the earth acquired its oblate 

 spheroidal form by revolving round its axis in that 

 state. In this fluid state the component parts of the 

 earth were suspended in one general undivided mass, 

 "without form and void." These parts were endued 

 with a variety of principles or laws of elective 

 attraction, though equally and universally governed 

 by the same law of gravitation. They were hetero- 

 geneous : and by their attraction progressively 

 formed a habitable world. As the component parts 

 of the chaos successively separated, the sea univer- 

 sally prevailed over the earth ; and this would have 

 continued to be the case had it not been for the sun 

 and the moon, which were coeval with the earth, 

 and by their attractive influence interfered with the 

 regular subsiding of the solid matter which was going 

 on. As the separation of the fluids and solids in- 

 creased, the latter were moved from place to place, 

 without regularity, and hence the sea became un- 

 equally deep. These inequalities daily becominj 

 greater, in process of time dry land was formed, an 

 NAT. HIST. VOL. II. 



divided the sea ; islands gradually appeared, like 

 sand-banks above the water, and at length became 

 firm, dry, and fit for the reception of the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms. He supposed that mountains 

 and continents were not primary productions of 

 nature, but of a very distant period from the creation ; 

 that they are the effects of subterraneous fires and 

 commotions, and were produced when the strata of 

 the earth had acquired their greatest degrees of 

 firmness and cohesion, and when the testaceous 

 matter had assumed a stony hardness ; and, finally, 

 that the marine shells found in various places, on and 

 below the surface of the earth, were for the most 

 part generated, lived and died, in the places in which 

 they were found ; that they were not brought from 

 distant regions, as some have supposed ; and, conse- 

 quently, that these beds of shells, &c., were originally 

 the bottom of the ocean. 



John Whitehurst, whose geological views we have 

 thus briefly adverted to, was a native of Congleton, 

 in Cheshire. He passed much of his time in Derby- 

 shire, and investigated with considerable -ability the 

 stratification of that county. In the course of his 

 inquiries, he has assiduously collected facts, among 

 which his account of the mineral treasures of Derby- 

 shire still retains much value for its accuracy and 

 scientific truth. 



Two or three years after the appearance of Mr. 

 Whitehurst's publication, M. de Luc, of Geneva, 

 dissatisfied with the theories which had previously 

 been proposed, offered another, which occupied con- 

 siderable attention in the scientific world. He sup- 

 posed that the ocean once covered our continents ; 

 that the bottom of the old ocean was full of moun- 

 tains, which neither the main waters nor any other 

 cause known to us formed, and which he therefore 

 calls primordial. These mountains rose above the 

 surface of the waters, and formed islands. These 

 islands and the ancient continents were fruitful and 

 well-peopled ; and the ancient sea had tides, currents, 

 and tempests like the present ocean. These powers 

 acting upon the soft matters which are known to have 

 formed the bottom of the ancient ocean, produced 

 accumulations of calcareous substances, which, in 

 process of time, became more or less mixed with 

 marine bodies. The rivers, in the meanwhile, carried 

 from the land into the sea the scattered remains of 

 animal and vegetable productions ; the sea itself 

 washed them from its coast into its bosom ; and these 

 materials, transported by currents, became a second- 

 ary soil upon its primordial bottom. Fires and 

 elastic fluids, formed by chemical decomposition, 

 made various openings in the bottom of the ocean, 

 whence proceeded torrents of liquid substances and 

 larva ; which gave rise to the volcanic mountains 

 observable on the surface of our continents. The 

 continents which existed in a state of population and 

 fertility, while the sea covered those which we now 

 inhabit, though they did not form a solid mass, but 

 were, properly speaking, vaults, which covered im- 

 mense caverns, maintained their elevation above the 

 level of the ocean by the strength of their pillars ; 

 which, being of primordial matter, were solid, and 

 stable : but the changes which the subterranean fire 

 produced at the bottom of the ancient sea, opened 

 passages for its waters into the interior of 'the earth ; 

 the violent excitement produced by this eruption 

 shook the pillars of the primitive earth ; which, 

 sinking into its caverns, the old continents disap- 

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