Natural History, 175 



This gentleman declares himself a warm friend to 

 revelation, and professes to have formed a system 

 tn strict conformity with the sacred history. In 

 some respects he agrees with Mr. Whitehurst; 

 in others, he adopts the opinions of M. De Luc; 

 while, with regard to a third class of his doctrines, 

 he claims to be original. He supposes that the 

 earth, immediately after the fall, and in conse- 

 quence of the divine curse pronounced against it, 

 underwent a total change, by means of the ele- 

 mentary fire lodged, at that time, near its centre i 

 and that hence arose the irregularities which now 

 appear in the earth's surface. 



The theory of Miln w^as followed by that of 

 Dr. James Hutton, of Edinburgh, which has been 

 much more distinguished, and excited incompa- 

 rably more attention. Dr. Hutton thinks" that 

 all our rocks and strata have been formed by sub- 

 sidence under the waters of a former ocean, from 

 the decay of a former earth, carried down to the 

 sea by land floods; that the strata at the bottom 

 of the ocean were brought into fusion by subter- 

 raneous fires, and consolidated by subsequent con- 

 gelation; that these strata were forced up, and 

 made to form islands and continents by similar 

 agency; that the shells, and other exuvia: of ani- 

 mals, gradually collected and incorporated with 

 these strata, make about a fourth part of our solid 

 ground; and that the foregoing operations, viz. 

 the waste of old land, the formation of new under 

 the ocean, and the elevation of the strata now form- 

 ing there, into future dry land, are a progressive 

 work of nature, which always did, and always will 

 go on, forming w^orld after world in perpetual suc- 



g Theory of the Earth ; or, an Investigation of the Laivs observable in the 

 Composition^ Dissolution and Restoration of Land tipon the Earth, by James 

 HuTTox, M. D. F. R. S. E. This memoir is contained in th£ Transac 

 iions of the Royal Society of £dinburgb^ vol, i. 



