Natural History, \^§ 



the waters the various substances held in solution, 

 or suspended in them, subsided in distinct strata, 

 according to their specific gravities; and that these 

 are arranged horizontally, one over the other, like 

 the coats of an onion. As this theory was soon 

 found to contradict some of the plainest and most 

 unquestionable facts which geologists observed, it 

 has had few admirers, and its refutation has been 

 usually considered as obvious and easy. 



In 1696 Mr. William Whiston, a man of 

 uncommon acuteness, and of still greater learning, 

 published a Nezv Theory of the Earth, from its 

 Original to the consummation of all things. He 

 supposed the earth, in the beginning, to be an 

 uninhabitable Comet, subject to such alternate ex- 

 tremes of heat and cold, that its matter, being 

 sometimes liquefied, and sometimes frozen, was in 

 the form of a chaos, or an abyss surrounded with 

 utter darkness. This chaos was the atmosphere 

 of the comet, composed of heterogeneous mate- 

 rials, having its centre occupied with a globular^ 

 hot, solid nucleus, of about two thousand leagues 

 diameter. Such was the condition of the earth 

 before the period described by Moses as the time 

 of creation. The first day of the creation every 

 material in this rude mass began to be arranged 

 according to its specific gravity. The heavy fluids 

 sunk down, and left to the earthy, watery, and 

 aerial substances, the superior regions. Round 

 the solid nucleus is placed the heavy fluid, which 

 descended first, and formed the great abyss upon 

 which the earth floats, as a cork upon quicksilver. 

 The great abyss is formed of two concentric cir- 

 cles; the interior being the heavy fluid, and the 

 superior water; upon which last, the earth, or the 

 crust we inhabit, is immediately formed. So that, 

 according to this theorist, the globe is composed 

 of a number "of coats or shells, one within the 



