PROSPECTIVE PROVISION FOP^ MAN. 415 



was about to place upon its surface, was in the providential 

 contemplation of the Creator, in his primary disposal of the 

 physical forces, which have caused some of the earliest, and 

 most violent Perturbations of the globe.* 



CHAPTER XXII. 



Adaptations of the Earth to afford supplies of water through 

 the medium of Springs. 



As the presence of water is essential both to animal and 

 vegetable existence, the adjustment of the Earth's surface to 

 supply this necessary fluid, in due proportion to the demand, 



* That part of the History of Metals which relates to their various Pro- 

 perties and Uses, and their especial Adaptation to the Physical condition of 

 Man, has been so ably and amply illustrated by two of my Associates in this 

 Series of Treatises, that I have more Satisfaction in referring my readers to 

 the Chapters of Dr. Kidd and Dr. Prout upon these subjects than in attempt- 

 ing myself to follow the history of the productions of metallic veins, beyond 

 the sources from which they are derived within the body o&the Earth. 



A summary of the all-important Uses of Metals to Mankind is thus briefly 

 given, by one of our earliest and most original writers on Physico-theology. 

 " As for Metals, they are so many ways useful to mankind, and those 

 Uses so well known to all, that it would be lost labour to say any thing of 

 them : without the use of these we could have nothing of culture or 

 civility : no Tillage or Agriculture ; no Reaping or Mowing ; no Plough- 

 ing or Digging ; no Pruning or Loping; no Grafting or Insition; no me- 

 chanical Arts or Trades ; no Vessels or Utensils of Household-stuff; no con- 

 venient Houses or Edifices; no Shipping or Navigation. What a kind of 

 barbarous and sordid life we must necessaril}' have lived, the Indians in the 

 Northern part of America are a clear demonstration. Only it is remarka- 

 ble that those which are of most frequent and necessary use, as Iron, 

 Brass and Lead, are the most common and plentiful : others that are more 

 rare, may better be spared, yet are they thereby qualified to be made the 

 common measure and standard of the value of all other commodities, and so 

 to serve for Coin or 3Ione\', to which use they have been employed by all 

 civil Nations in all Ages." Ray's Wisdom of God in the Creation. Pt. i. 

 5th ed. 1709, p. 110. 



