4P2 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 692-3, 



The PFisdom of God manifested in the Works of the Creation j in two Parts. By 

 John Ray, Fellow of the Royal Society. The second Edition enlarged. Lon- 

 don, 8vo. i6Q2.* N° 196, p. 611. 



Three Physico-Theological Discourses, concerning, 1 . The Primitive Chaos, and 

 Creation of the World. 2. The General Deluge, its Causes and Effects. 

 3. The Dissolution of the World. By John Ray, F. R. S. The second Edi- 

 tion. Lond. 8vo. \6q3. N° \q6, p. 615. 



In the first discourse concerning the chaos, the author produces the testi- 

 monies of several heathen writers, to prove the production of all things out of 

 it, which they considered self-existent, and unproduced, as he thinks, errone- 

 ously, which opinion he shows consentaneous to Moses, there being a gradual 

 formation of things related, which were all produced, as he supposes, out of 

 pre-existing seeds, which he says were first created by God. As to the separa- 

 tion of the land and water, which at first covered the face of the earth, he 

 proposes, that it might be effected by the same causes which raise mountains 

 now, viz. subterraneous fires and flatuses, such as Ovid in the 15th Metamorph. 

 describes near the city Troezen ; and a later instance near Puzzuolo, of a new 

 mountain ; which last he describes from his own observation. He mentions 

 several other hills raised, and now oft shaken by earthquakes and subterraneous 

 fires, as the Andes, Alps, &c. Taking notice of an extraordinary one, which 

 in the time of Valentinian shook the whole world, with some passages out of 

 Strabo and others, he shows from a passage out of Julius Ethnicus, and father 

 Kircher, that there may be a communication from one burning mountain to 

 another, though at a great distance, by vaults under the sea; the bottom 

 whereof, except where it is rocky, he by the way asserts to be very even. Of 

 submarine plants he observes, there are none at great depths for want of air. 

 This depth usually answers the height of the adjoining hills and lands. He 

 treats of the use and necessity of mountains. Coming in the next place to the 

 creation of animals, he proposes some questions, as, Whether God made at 

 first the seeds only of all animals, and scattered them over the earth, or made 

 the first set of animals in perfection, giving each species a power to generate ? 

 then. Whether he made a great many of a sort, or only two, a male and a 

 female) And from these another question arises, Whether the ovaries of the 

 first animals actually included in them the whole number to be produced by that 

 species to the end of the world ? Which he inclines to, and seems to make 



* This being a well-known work, it seems unnecessary to give any thing nnore than ite title. 



