20 
the hypotheses of a fluid earth, evidently believed that it 
was originally a solid. In his Optics, page 378, he observes, 
" It seems probable to me that God in the beginning, formed 
matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles, 
of such sizes, and figures, and with such proportions, and in 
such proportions to space as most conduces to the end for 
which He formed them. These hard and solid particles were 
variously associated in the first creation by the councils of an 
intelligent agent, for it became Him who created them, to set 
them in order ; and if He did so, it is unphilosophical to seek 
any other origin of this world, or to pretend it might arise out 
of chaos, by the mere laws of Nature, though, being once 
formed, it may continue by those laws for many ages. " The 
inspired Word states that "God divided the waters which 
were under the firmament from those above the firinainent, 
and separated those below from the dry land, gathering the 
waters into seas, and causing the diy land to appear. " There 
is therefore a measure of probability that the primary state of 
our globe was that of mud, or commingled earths and water, — 
none whatever that it was a molten mass, still in igneous fusion 
internally. If on due investigation of the reasoning submitted 
the theologian would but scrutinize the asserted theories of 
science, and, "proving all things, hold fast only such as are 
good," a firm stand-point might be gained, on a basis of 
truth, instead of on the assumptions presently rife, derogatory 
to the great Author of Nature, whose handiwork is practically 
denied daily. If the hypothesis of an igneous core, oi* 
central furnace in our globe be discarded as without proof 
in Nature, or the inspired history of creation, some other 
force in nature than volcanic upheavals on the grand scale 
must be searched for, to accoxint for the movements of the 
waters of the globe, and their re-arrangeiuent as to surface 
level, causing, as in the beginning, new lands to appear ele- 
vated above ocean surface, and the waters to be re-gathered 
into newly assigned positions. There is an utter inconsis- 
tence in the ideas set forth by the iipheavalists, in that the 
same expansive force can be at once propelling and tractile 
in its influence on the crust of the earth. In Nature we 
have occasional evidence of petty local upheavals, and de- 
pressions, by volcanic agency, but as limited as to the 
superficies of the earth as the upburst spot of earth, the site 
of a school-boy's experiments upon a combination of sulphur 
and iron filings, is to the area of his playground. 
Now, how does science, by its accredited teachers, reason 
upon these questions ? One eminent geologist thus attempts 
to silence doubts upon them, by putting forth - ideas, which, 
