402 ON THEORIES OF THE EARTH. 



nature ; and the water is precipitated from the air by 

 cooling. The Protogea has therefore scarcely a no- 

 velty : as it also fails just where it is most wanted. The 

 cosmogony of Buffon has been called an elegant ro- 

 mance: which is possible. But his theory is an ex- 

 tensive collection of facts, whence his successors have 

 amply profited. He has been compared with a much 

 more modern theorist : but they commence from dif- 

 ferent points, and employ their agents in reverse order: 

 while the French philosopher also differs, in foretelling 

 the final extinction of life, by the cooling of the globe. 

 The earth is a portion of the sun, transferred to its 

 orbit by the impulse of a cornet : its figure is the re- 

 sult of its original fluidity, and it retains a central 

 heat. If this theory involves the whole solar system, 

 I need not pursue what is at variance with the laws of 

 geometry. And if, under equal mathematical know- 

 ledge, he argues for the uniform density of the earth, 

 we must smile when he censures those who solve diffi- 

 culties by adjusting the works of nature to their own 

 imaginations. Like Leibnitz, his granite is the ori- 

 ginal vitrified matter of the globe, while sand and 

 gravel are produced from it by fire. But the con- 

 densed vapours which form the sea, deposit certain 

 slimy matters towards the production of strata. The 

 diurnal motions and the tides produce subsequent 

 changes; transporting materials to the equatorial re- 

 gions, and thus generating the present forms of sea 

 and land : while currents, still posterior, have given 

 these primitive mountains their present linear direc- 

 tions and precipitous faces : generating also the Cur- 

 rents of many subsequent imitators. Fissures are 

 produced by contraction ; in one class of rocks from 

 evaporation, in the other from cooling. I need not 

 proceed: while the ignorance of Button's clay claims 



