VOL. XIX.3 I'HILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 43 



least countenance either from the present face of the earth, or any credible and 

 authentic records of the ancient state of it, but that the globe is to this day 

 nearly in the same condition that the universal deluge left it. 



In the 2d part he treats of the universal deluge, to prove that these marine 

 bodies were then left at land, and that at the deluge there were made several 

 great alterations in the terrestrial globe : particularly that the whole globe was 

 then dissolved, the particles of stone, marble, and all other solid fossils disse- 

 vered, taken up into the water, and there sustained, together with sea-shells, 

 and other animal and vegetable bodies ; that at length all these subsided from 

 the water, according to the order of their gravity, the heaviest bodies first, 

 then those which were lighter, but all that had the same degree of gravity 

 settled down at the same time ; so that those shells or other bodies that were of 

 the same specific gravity with sand sunk down together with it, and so were 

 inclosed in the strata of stone which that sand formed ; those shells which were 

 lighter, and but of the same gravity with chalk, subsided at the same time that 

 the chalky particles did, and by that means became lodged in the strata of 

 chalk : and in like manner all the rest. He shows how the present earth was 

 formed out of this promiscuous mass of sand, earth, shells, and the rest, falling 

 down again and subsiding from the water ; and that this sediment was plain and 

 equal, the strata continuous, and consequently the globe at first even and sphe- 

 rical, the water lying above all, covering and environing the whole globe ; that 

 after a while the said strata were broken and dislocated, some elevated, and 

 others depressed, by which means all the inequalities of the globe, fissures, 

 grottos, mountains, valleys, islands, the channel of the sea, and all others 

 were formed ; the whole terraqueous globe being at the time of the deluge put 

 into the condition that we at this day behold. He concludes this part with an 

 account of the trees which are found in great plenty buried in mosses, fens, or 

 bogs, both in England and other countries, showing that they were deposited 

 there by the deluge, and by what means they have been preserved down to our 

 times. 



The 3d part, which is concerning the fluids of the globe, he subdivides into 

 2 sections, the former whereof comprehends the present and natural state of 

 the water within and upon the earth, showing that there is a vast mass of water 

 inclosed in the bowels of the earth which is what Moses calls the great abyss ; 

 that this abyss communicates with the ocean by means of certain hiatuses pass- 

 ing between them, and is the standing fund which supplies water to the surface 

 of the earth, as well springs and rivers, as vapours and rain ; that there is a 

 nearly uniform and constant fire or heat disseminated throughout the body of the 

 earth, which evaporates the water of the abyss, elevating it thence up to the 



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