154 Notice and Review of the Reliquiae Diluvianac. 
the flood. In explaining this plate, he remarks “ that the 
opinion of the ancients concerning the earth’s resembling 
an egg, has great propriety in it; for the center nucleus, 
by its innermost situation and shape, may well represent 
the yolk; the abyss of water, which surrounds it, and is 
ina middle position, may stand for the clear fluid of the 
white; the crust of the earth (allowing only for its breaks 
and cracks,) by its roundhess, hardness, uppermost situa- 
tion, and little inequalities on its surface, 1s justly analo- 
gous to the shell.” i ean | i 
The celebrated theory of Whiston, that imputes the 
deluge to the shock or attraction of a comet, has had as 
many supporters, as any other; and a late able geological 
writer, after sweeping away every other hypothesis, suf= 
fers this to remain as perhaps better thannone. _ 
Very different from these wild freaks of imagination, 
are the writings of modern geologists. Even when they 
propose hypotheses, it is with the premonition that they 
aré of little importance, and not entitled to much confi- 
dence. . 9 
The recent “ Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and 
Mosaical Geologies,” by Granville Penn, Esq. we feel 
obliged reluctantly to notice, as an exception to this  re- 
mark. We know nothing of this gentleman, except what 
we learn from this book ; and this exhibits him in the 
character of a good scholar, who is well versed in philolo- 
gy, and who has read most of the modern treatises on ge- 
ology: but really we do not, fear to hazard the assertion, 
that he has not seen much of rocks in their native beds. 
Yet he has made a vehement attack upon modern geology. 
He assumes in the first place, that the mineral and Mosa- 
ical geologies are directly opposed to each other, and ab- 
solutely irreconcileable ; so that if the one be true, the. 
other is false. He then endeavors to extract the ‘* root. 
or fundamental principle” of the mineral geology, which 
root, he conceives to be the. hypothesis of a primitive cha- 
otic ocean, containing in solution the materials of which, 
the solid parts of the globe were formed by a gradual pro-. 
cess of precipitation and crystallization. He next puts 
forth his mightiest efforts, to prove that such a supposition 
is directly opposed to the philosophy of Bacon and. New- 
ton; whe, by the way, lived in an age when almost noth~ 
