Sect. IV.] Gcologi/. on 



Hifferent specific gra> ities, and thereby necessarily 

 disjposed themselves in dillrrent strata, lie also 

 maintained that these submarine eruptions, while 

 they threw up huge and irregular masses of matter, 

 also ingulfed marine plants and animals of every 

 kind, which subsided in like manner, and thus 

 formed new mountains, and new beds of stones, 

 sand, metals, and other minerals, intermingled uitli 

 tlie remains of vegetable and animal bodies, all 

 which remained under the sea till some new agi- 

 tation threw them above its surflice. He supposed 

 that the waters by which the earth was originally 

 overflown subsided by degrees, the dry land first 

 appearing in places adjacent to that where the first 

 man and animals were placed at the creation; that 

 the land extended itself gradually, a considerable 

 time elapsing before the waters had returned into 

 their proper bed, during which time the shell-fish, 

 multiplying in great abundance, were uni\ersa[iy 

 distributed by the w^aters of the sea; and that when 

 the bottom of the ocean was raised up by the earth- 

 quakes that accompanied the deluge, and formed 

 the mountains, wiiole beds of such shells were 

 thrown up, and distributed as we now behold 

 them. 



About the year 1744 M. le Cat, a philosopher 

 of France, proposed a theory of the earth diiTcring 

 from all which had preceded it. According to liim, 

 in the beginning, the substance whence metals, 

 stones, earths, and other mineral bodies were to be 

 formed, was a soft mass, consisting of a kind of 

 mud. The earth was a globe, or regular spheroid, 

 and its surface was uniform and free from hills and 

 valleys. The sun and moon Were after wai^cfs created. 



