58 THEORY OP THE EARTH. 



could not have supported themselves. Whistori* 

 fancied that the earth was created from the atmos- 

 phere of one comet, and that it was deluged by 

 the tail of another. The heat which remained 

 from its first origin, in his opinion, excited the 

 whole antediluvian population, men and animals, 

 to sin, for which they were all drowned in the de- 

 luge, excepting the fish, whose passions were appa- 

 rently less violent. 



It is easy to see, that though naturalists might 

 have a range sufficiently wide within the limits 

 prescribed by the book of Genesis, they very soon 

 found themselves in too narrow bounds: and when 

 they had succeeded in converting the six days 

 employed in the work of creation into so many pe- 

 riods of indefinite length, their systems took a flight 

 proportioned to the periods, which they could then 

 dispose of at pleasure. 



-. - ^r -"#. 



Even the great Leibnitz, as well as Descartes^ 

 amused his imagination by conceiving the world to 

 be an extinguished sun, or vitrified globe; upon 

 which the vapours condensing in proportion as it 

 cooled, formed the seas, and afterwards deposited 

 calcarious strata, t 



By Demaittet, the globe was conceived to have 



* A New Theory of the Earth. Lond. 1 708. 



f Leibnitz, Protogcea. Act. Lips. 1683 ; Gott. 1749. 



