152 Notice and Review of the Reliquiae Diluvianae. 
rather owe their form and figure to the shells of the fishes 
they represent:’’ and he gravely sustains, by numerous 
reasons, the former of these opinions. 
M. Bourguet maintained that the original earth was 
formed at once, and afterwards gradually softened, and at 
length suddenly dissolved—-producing we suppose the 
deluge—and through the agency of fire, it then began to 
be consumed, and that it is now like a bomb shell with its 
match on fire, and ere long will be blown up with a dread- 
ful explosion. 
Robinson, a clergyman of the English established 
church, gave, in 1694, an anatomical description of the 
earth, in which he undertook to prove ‘‘ that matter at first 
consisted of innumerable particles, of divers figures, and 
different qualities, running a ree! in dark confusion till the 
world, by the infusion of a vital spirit, became a great ani- 
mal, having skin, flesh, blood, &c.’? In the eighth chap- 
ter of his **‘ Anatomy of the Harth,’’ he treats of “the bel- 
ly of the earth.” He thinks it undeniably certain, that 
the centre of the earth contains a vast cavity of a multan- 
cular figure, ‘filled up with a crude and indigested matter, 
endued with several different and contrary qualities, 
which are in a continued struggle and contention among 
themselves.””, When the airy particles prevail, they 
break through the crust or skin of the earth in hurricanes; 
when the fiery particles triumph, volcanic eruptions and 
earthquakes are the consequence; and these are some- 
times so violent that “the very ribs of the earth’’ are 
broken; “and these convulsions are as natural to the 
earth,’’ he says, ‘“‘as fevers, agues, and other distempers 
are to the bodies of other animals.” 
Authors, in all ages, have found no difiiculty in estab- 
lishing the position, that the central parts of the earth 
contain water enough to produce the deluge. The difli- 
culty has been, how to raise it from the centre, so as to 
drown the surface.* Ray had recourse to’a shifting of 
the earth’s centre, whereby the water was drawn after it, 
and overwhelmed the dry ground by successive inunda- 
tion. Dr. Hook, however, supposes the earth was com- 
pressed into a prolate spheroid, just as a lemon is squeez- 
* See some suggestion to elucidate this subject, in the notice of May- 
den’s Geologicai Essays, Vol. THI. p. 52, &c. of this Journal.—Ep. 
