Natural Historif. US 



.large horizontal plane. The granites, and other 

 stones, which he does not consider as stratified, 

 subsided when the water was in some degree of 

 rest, as at the highest of the tides, or where local 

 obstructions produced stagnation. When the 

 whole surface w^as in a fluid state, the tides neces- 

 earily rose to a prodigious height, several miles 

 higher than the tops of any of our mountains. 

 The mountains of granite, which are uniform 

 throughout, must have subsided in one tide. The 

 tides were highest, and had their resting places on 

 the two opposite parts of the globe, which are 

 now the continents; and their direction, on dif- 

 ferent parts of the globe, was such as we now find 

 that of the strata to be. He maintained, further, 

 that the interior body of the earth was formed in the 

 same manner, prior to the superficial parts. From 

 various causes it was full of inequalities. It con- 

 tained much water, both in the composition of the 

 not yet consolidated strata, and in separate cavities ; 

 so that when the superficial strata were laid between, 

 the tides, and the ocean began to retreat into its 

 present bed, the weight of these superincumbenC 

 strata forced out the water imprisoned below them. 

 These strata themselves, as yet soft and flexible, 

 were, in many cases, bent and broken; cracks 

 were occasioned by their contraction in drying, 

 which cracks were increased by the inclination of 

 the strata, in different ways, and were widest at 

 the top; and the whole solid matter diminishing 

 in bulk, as it became dry, high tides still over- 

 flowed it, and poured extraneous stony matter into 

 the fissures. On these principles he explains all 

 the declivities, ruptures, interruptions, and irregu-* 

 larities which w^e now behold. The larger grains 

 and fragments found in the composition of our 

 rocks, and all those bodies which are of a similar 

 structure, and not crv:>tallized, were once in dis- 



