44 



HOOKE'S DILUVIAL THEORY. 



[Ch. in. 



om 



subterranean disturbance, from ' the sad catastrophe of Sod 

 and Gomorrah,' down to the Chilian earthquake of 164^ 

 The elevating of the bottom of the sea, the sinking and sub- 



mersion oi the land, and most 



iiici siuu ^i iuxc xaiiu, aiiumosi, oi cue inequalities oi the earth's 

 surface, might, he said, be accounted for by the agency of 



these subterranean causes. He 

 Napl 



>/ 



Mich 



more 



■ Ks 



says, 



to prove, he does not doubt but that there had been as many 

 earthquakes in the parts of the earth under the ocean 



as m 



the parts of the dry land ; in confirmation of which, lie 

 mentions the immeasurable depth of the sea near some 

 volcanos. To attest the extent of simultaneous subterranean 

 movements, he refers to an earthquake in the West Indies, in 

 the year 1690, where the space of earth raised, or ' struck 

 upwards,' by the shock, exceeded, he affirms, the length of 

 the Alps and Pyrenees. 



Hi 



.s Hooke 

 marine i 



of his 



hypothesis of the day, ' that 

 referred to Noah's flood,' to be wholly untenable, he appears 

 to have felt himself called upon to substitute a diluvial theory 



own, and thus he became involved in countless diffi- 

 culties and contradictions. < During the great catastrophe,' 

 he said, ' there might have been a changing of that part which 

 was before dry land into sea by sinking, and of that which 

 was sea into dry land by raising, and marine bodies might 



have been buried in sediment 



ocean, in the 



interval between the creation and the deluge.' * Then follows 

 a disquisition on the separation of the land from the waters, 

 mentioned in Genesis ; during which operation some places 

 of the shell of the earth were forced outwards, and others 

 pressed downwards or inwards, &c. His diluvial hypothesis 

 very much resembled that of Steno, and was entirely op- 

 posed to the fundamental principles professed by him, that 

 he would explain the former changes of the earth in a more 

 natural manner than others had done. When, in despite of 

 this declaration, he required a former ' crisis of nature,' and 





* Postli. Works, p. 410. 



