CHAPTER VIII. 



AN HYPOTHESIS OF THE TERRAQUEOUS GLOBE. A DIGRESSION. 



[THE seventeenth century was peculiarly an age of scientific research and investigation. The 

 substantial and brilliant discoveries of Newton induced many of his less gifted contemporaries to 

 pursue inquiries into the arcana and profound mysteries of science ; but where rational inferences and 

 deductions failed, they too frequently had recourse to mere unsupported theory and conjectural 

 speculation. 



The stratification of the crust of our globe, and the division of its surface into land and water, was 

 a fertile theme for conjecture ; and many learned and otherwise sagacious writers, assigned imaginary 

 causes for the results which they attempted to explain. 



The chapter of Aubrey's work which bears the above title is, to some extent, of this nature. It 

 consists chiefly of speculative opinions extracted from other works, with a few conjectures of his own, 

 which, though based upon the clear and judicious views of his friend Robert Hooke, do not, upon the 

 whole, deserve much consideration ; although to the curious in the history of Geological science they 

 mav appear interesting. Its author had sufficient diffidence as to the merits of this chapter to 

 describe it as " a digression ; ad mentem Mr. R. Hook, R.S.S. ; " and his friend Ray, in a letter 

 already quoted, observes, after commending other portions of the present work, " I find but one thing 

 that may give any just offence ; and that is, the Hypothesis of the Terraqueous Globe ; wherewith 

 I must confess myself not to be satisfied : but that is but a digression, and aliene from your subject ; 

 and so may very well be- left out." Ray's work on "Chaos and Creation" published in 1692, a 

 year after the date of tliis letter, was a valuable contribution to the geological knowledge of the 

 time. Some notes by Evelyn, on Aubrey's original MS., shew that he was at least equally credulous 

 with the author. 



Aubrey concludes that the universal occurence of " petrified fishes' shells gives clear evidence that 

 the earth hath been all covered over with water." He assumes that the irregularities and changes 

 in the earth's surface were occasioned by earthquakes ; and has inserted in his manuscript, from the 

 London Gazette, accounts of tliree earthquakes, in different parts of Italy, in the years 1688 and 

 1690. A small 4to pamphlet, being " A true relation of the terrible Earthquake which happened at 

 Ragusa, and several other cities in Dalniatia and Albania, the 6th of April 1667," is also inserted in 

 the MS. Aubrey observes : " As the world was tome by earthquakes, as also the vaulture by time 

 foundred and fell in, so the water subsided and the dry land appeared. Then, why might not that 

 change alter the center of gravity of the earth ? Before this the pole of the ecliptique perhaps 

 was the pole of the world." And in confirmation of these views he quotes several passages from 

 Ovid's Metamorphoses, book i. fab. 7. 8. He also cites the scheme of Father Kircher, of the 



