30 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. 



I water, which suddenly burst through the earth's crust, and rose 

 '. above the highest mountains. The earth's crust was entirely 

 disintegrated by this catastrophe, but living creatures, plants, 

 and metals remained intact. As the Flood subsided the dis- 

 integrated mnterial sank, and the stratigraphical succession 

 formed with the heaviest rocks in the lower strata and the 

 lighter deposits in the upper horizons. 



Similarly the heavy metals, the minerals, concretions, 

 marbles, and heaviest fossils were imbedded in the lowest 

 strata; in the chalk strata were buried the lighter conchylia 

 and echinoderms ; while the upper series of sandy, clayey, and 

 marly strata contained the bones of men, four-footed animals, 

 fishes, the shells of terrestrial and fresh-water conchylia and 

 plants. 



The post-diluvial epoch had not been disturbed by any 

 further catastrophe ; rain had washed away the superficial 

 material from the mountains, and the rivers and streams had 

 carried the detritus into alluvial plains and sea-basins. 



William Whiston, 1 another English writer, indulged in still 

 more remarkable fancies about the early history of our globe. 

 He supposed the earth had originally been a comet, which 

 happened to approach the sun, and was melted into a coherent 

 mass. As it travelled away from the sun, a re-arrangement of 

 the earth's material began ; the heavier particles formed a solid 

 nucleus, the lighter particles gathered in the superficial parts; 

 the surface was covered by water except where high mountain 

 chains and islands rose above the ocean-level. The Paradise 

 of the Bible was situated in the southern hemisphere, under 

 the Tropic of Capricorn. In the beginning of creation the 

 earth had no rotatory movement round its axis. That did not 

 begin until after the Sin and Fall of Man in Paradise. After 

 the Fall, in virtue of the rotatory movement, the internal heat of 

 the earth radiated towards the surface and encouraged a rich 

 increase of plant and animal life, but also caused a strong 

 development of the human passions. The punishment came : 



1 William Whiston, born 1666, in 1695 became Chaplain to the Bishop 

 of Norwich, and was in 1701 recommended by Sir Isaac Newlon as his 

 successor to the Chair of Mathematics in Cambridge. The heterodoxy of 

 his writings caused Whiston to be deprived of his Professorship in 1701. 

 The wide intelligence and imagination of his writing commanded, however, 

 a large circle of admirers, and his Theory of the Earth ran through six 

 editions in a very short time. He died in 1753. 



