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situated under the sea, no matter for the depth, 

 let there be but heat enough, and the substance 

 which opposes that will be sent burning to the 

 atmosphere, although the very depth of mid-ocean 

 lie between. Indeed, the water tends in two 

 ways to facilitate the ascent of the sub-marine 

 volcano. First, it consolidates the external crust 

 by cooling it, and thus prevents the spread of the 

 matter over the bottom ; and, in the second place, 

 as water presses in proportion to the depth, and 

 presses equally in all directions, the pressure on 

 the top of any mass is less than the pressure upon 

 an equal portion on one of the sides. Thus, there 

 is a considerable resemblance between the ascent 

 of a volcanic column through the water of the sea, 

 and the ascent of a column of smoke through the 

 air; and so, by means of the cooling influence 

 and pressure of the water, acting jointly, buildings 

 may be erected there far more gigantic than any 

 which man, or any power of nature with which 

 we are acquainted, could erect upon the land. 



Those who look at the productions of nature, 

 without taking nature's powers of producing into 

 the account, are in the habit of considering it a 

 yery marvellous thing to find shells and other pro- 

 ductions which are not only of the sea, but of the 

 very depths of the sea, near the summits of some of 

 the loftiest mountains on the surface of the earth ; 

 but truly it is difficult to imagine how the case could 

 be otherwise ; for there is no where on the globe an 

 apparatus in which great mountains could be ma- 

 nufactured but just the great ocean; and it is very 

 likely that so much of the earth's surface is co- 

 vered with the ocean just in order that those 

 powers with which the Almighty has endowed 



