162 Natural History. 



from Scripture/' lie supposed that when the e^rtfl 

 was first created, the terrestrial matter was entirely 

 dissolved in the aqueous, forming a thick, muddy, 

 chaotic mass; that the figure of this mass was 

 spherical, and on the outside of this sphere lay a 

 body of gross dark air; that w^ithin the sphere of 

 earth and water was an immense cavity, called by 

 Moses the deep; that this internal cavity was filled 

 with air of a kind similar to that on the outside y 

 that on the creation of light the internal air re- 

 ceived elasticity sufficient to force its way through 

 the external covering; that immediately on this, 

 the water descended, filled up the void, and left 

 the earth in a form similar to that which it bears 

 at present; that when it pleased God to destroy 

 mankind by a fiood, he caused, by his own mira- 

 culous agency, such a pressure of the atmosphere 

 on the surface of the earth, that a large portion 

 of it was forced into the internal cavity which it 

 had formerly occupied, and expelled the waters 

 from thence with great violence, spreading them 

 over the surface; that the shell of the earth was, 

 by this means, utterly dissolved, and reduced to 

 its original state of fluidity; and that, after the 

 divine purposes were answered by the deluge, the 

 globe, by a process similar to that which at first 

 took place, was restored to the form which it now 

 bears. 



In the year 1740 the Abbe Moro, of Italy, 

 published a theory of the earth, wdiich he chiefly 

 derived from the works of Ray, of the preceding 

 century. He supposed that the surface of the 

 earth, as we now behold it, and especially the 

 mountainous parts, arose, originally, from the bot- 

 tom of the ocean. At first, according to him, 



a Thi? theory was enlarged and commented upon by Mr. Catcot, a fol- 

 lower of Hutchinson, who, in 1768, publhhed a volume on thosubject.^ 



