47G PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO }6Q2. 



As to the leaking of the water through this shell, when once a passage shall 

 be found for it to run through, I must confess it is an objection seemingly of 

 weight ; but when we consider how tightly great beds of chalk or clay, and 

 much more stone do hold water, and even caves arched with sand ; no man can 

 doubt but the wisdom of the Creator has provided for the macrocosm by many 

 more ways than I can either imagine or express, especially since we see the 

 admirable and innumerable contrivances wherewith each worthless individual is 

 furnished, both to defend itself and propagate its species. What curiosity in 

 the structure, what accuracy in the mixture and composition of the parts, ought 

 we not to expect in the fabric of this globe, designed for the lasting habitation 

 of so many various species of animals, in each of which there want not many 

 instances, that manifest the boundless power and goodness of their divine 

 author ; and can we then think it a hard supposition, that the internal parts of 

 this bubble of earth should be replete with such saline and vitriolic particles, as 

 may contribute to petrefaction, and dispose the transuding water to shoot and 

 coagulate into stone, so as continually to fortify, and if need were to consoli- 

 date any breach or flaw in the concave surface of the shell. 



And this perhaps may not without reason be supposed to be the final cause of 

 the admixture of the magnetical matter in the mass of the terrestrial parts of 

 our globe, viz. To strengthen and maintain the concave arch of this shell ; for 

 by what the excellent Mr. Newton has shown in his Principia Philosophiae, it 

 will follow that according to the general principle of gravity, visible through- 

 out the whole universe, all those particles which by length of time or other- 

 wise, shall moulder away, or become loose on the concave surface of the external 

 sphere, would fall in, and with great force descend on the internal, unless those 

 particles were of another sort of matter, capable, by their stronger tendency to 

 each other, to suspend the force of gravity ; but we know no other substances 

 capable of supporting each other by their mutual attraction, besides the mag- 

 netical, and these we see miraculously to perform that office, even where the 

 power of gravity has its full effect, much more within the globe where it is 

 weaker. Why then may we not suppose these said arches to be lined through- 

 out with a magnetical matter, or rather to be one great concave magnet, whose 

 two poles are the poles we have before observed to be fixed in the surface of our 

 globe ? 



Another argument, favouring this hypothesis, is drawn from a proposition of 

 the same Mr. Newton, where he determines the force with which the moon 

 moves the sea in producing the tides, where he says the density of the moon is 

 to that of the earth, as 680 to 387, or as Q to 5 nearly: therefore the body of 

 the moon is denser than our earth, &c. Now, if the moon be more solid than 



