[ 68o ] 
which he has given us talents to contemplate and ad- 
mire ! 
V.The deluge muff have produced very confiderable 
changes on the furface of the earth. Many Volca- 
nos feem to have been formed at that time by the 
accumulation of animal vegetable and mineral fub- 
ffances into huge maffes, which have afterwards fer- 
mented and putrified, and in procefs of time burff 
out into flames. Earthquakes muft have been fre- 
quent the firff years after the deluge by the fer- 
mentation of thefe heterogeneous bodies, before the 
remains of fo prodigious an inundation could be dif- 
fipated; for wherever there is any intelfine commotion 
in the earths, it’s violence mutt be greatly increafed, 
if it meets with water, and by its heat reduces it 
into vapour, which we know a6ts with an immenfe 
force *. That this muff have been the cafe the firff 
years after the deluge, may be inferred from the 
abundance of moifture it muff have left, and the 
fermentation of fo great a quantity of heterogeneous 
i'ubftances buried in ruins by that memorable cata- 
ffrophe. There are many obfervations, which feem 
to prove, that the earth, or at lead many parts of 
its lurface, have differed by fire ; not to mention the 
marks of it, which are to be obferved on many mi- 
neral fubftances. The artificial production of potter’s 
earth or clay is a very ftrong argument in fupport of 
this opinion. Potter’s earth, as is well known, is 
* This Teems to be the reafon, why places fituated upon the fea- 
fhore, or upon large rivers, as was the unhappy city of Lifbon, 
iuffer more from earthquakes than more inland Tituations, where 
fuel) ciKumftam.es do not concur. 
found 
