Natural History, 1 6^ 



tarth, in its primitive state, was plain and uni- 

 form; that all mountains, and every thing irregular 

 and rugged in the surface of it, are the result of 

 the curse pronounced on the ground after the fall; 

 that the melancholy lapse of our first parents was 

 immediately followed by earthquakes, and every 

 species of convulsion, which produced these dread- 

 ful effects in 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 about the poles; that 

 at first the poles of the earth were erect, 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 cen- 

 tre of gravity being removed twenty-three degrees 

 and an 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 

 parts 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 phenomena, 

 which so plainly establish the reality of the general 

 deluge. 



Another British theorist, of still more celebrated 

 name, published a new system of geology in 1778. 

 This was Mr. Whitehurst, a gentleman of re- 

 spectable talents and information, and whose the- 

 ory has attracted considerable attention/^ Mr* 

 Whitehurst supposes, that not only this globe, 

 but the whole of the planetary system was once in 

 a state of fluidity, and that the earth acquired its 

 oblate spheroidical form by revolving round its axis 

 in that state. In this fluid state, the component 



d An Inquiry into the Original State and Formation of tin Earth, &c. by 



John WmTKuu&sx, F. R, S. 1778. 



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