hunter's posthumous paper on fossils. 329 



" Besides which [aqueous causes] there are volcanic eruptions taking 

 place, which break the surface of the earth considerably, probably 

 destroying the old and forming new : possibly the Straits of Gibraltar 

 were formed from such a cause ; the Straits between Dover and Calais ; 

 the west end of the Isle of "Wight, broken off from the chalk hills that 

 run through Dorsetshire ; as also raising up considerable extent of the 

 surface of the earth which is already formed ; either raising up moun- 

 tains on its surface, or islands, when such arise in the sea ; afterwards 

 increasing their height by scattering inflamed matter from its bowels 

 on the surface ; exposing substances rather than forming them ; leaving 

 (we may stippose) vast caverns underneath, in which are again, probably, 

 formed native fossils. This may answer some material purpose in the 

 natural economy of the earth, but it does not appear so systematic — 

 not so much a general principle." — P. xviii. 



" These may form mountains and valleys ; or mountains may probably 

 be formed, as has been supposed, by subterraneous heats raising water 

 into steam, heaving up large tracts of surface, but which would hardly 

 form such length of ridges of mountains for many hundred miles with 

 such regularity as we find them ; at least, the eruptions that now take 

 place on the land do not produce such. Or whether the vast valleys 

 are only so many parts sunk, which are equally explicable upon the 

 appearance, but which are not to the present purpose." — P. xxii. 



" In all of nature's operations we may observe that they always tend 

 to destroy themselves. But there is, on the other hand, a restorative 

 principle ; it is like the hour-glass requiring being turned as soon as 

 run down : but in the hour-glass we have not the principle of inversion 

 arising out of the effect being completed, as we have in natural things ; 

 and indeed, in whatever way the raising of the bottom of the sea is 

 accounted for, we must ultimately suppose such a principle ; for if the 

 bottom is raised by any such power underneath, either by steam or 

 volcanic eruptions, which arise from the same principle, a space some- 

 where must be formed, into which the water will rush ; and a repetition 

 of them would bring the whole water towards the centre under the 

 surface ; therefore, from such a principle, the waters would be gradually 

 losing on the surface, and equally require a restorative principle." — 

 P. xxiii. 



" As the fossils of the sea, or water-animals, can now only be found 

 upon land, it is a proof that the sea was once there ; and from this alone 

 we may presume that where the sea now is, it was once land. This 

 leads to two modes of the exposition of the earth ; one, the sea leaving 

 the land; and the other, the bottom of the sea rising up above the 

 water by some convulsive motion of the earth at this part, I should be 



