THEORY OF THE EARTH. 57 



19. Of former Systems of Geology. 



During a long time, two events or epochs only, 

 the Creation and the Deluge, were admitted as 

 comprehending the changes which have occurred 

 upon the globe; and all the efforts of geologists 

 were directed to account for the present actual 

 state of the earth, by arbitrarily ascribing to it a 

 certain primitive state, afterwards changed and 

 modified by the deluge, of which also, as to its 

 causes, its operation, and its effects, every one of 

 them entertained his own theory. 



Thus, in the opinion of Burnet,* the whole earth 

 at the first consisted of a uniform light crust, which 

 covered over the abyss of the sea, and which, be- 

 ing broken for the production of the deluge, form- 

 ed the mountains by its fragments. According to 

 Woodward^ the deluge was occasioned by a mo- 

 mentary suspension of cohesion among the parti- 

 cles of mineral bodies; the whole mass of the 

 globe was dissolved, and the soft paste became pe- 

 netrated by shells. Scheuchzer\ conceived that God 

 raised up the mountains for the purpose of allow- 

 ing the waters of the deluge to run offj and accord- 

 ingly selected those portions which contained the 

 greatest abundance of rocks, without which they 



* Telluris Theoria Sacra. Lond. 1681. 



f Essay towards the Natural History of the Earth. Lond. 1702. 



% Memoires de 1' Academic, 1708. 



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