the Attractions of Spheroids of every Description. $ 
of different fluids of different densities, will be in equilibrium, 
and will for ever preserve its figure when it has the form of 
an elliptical spheroid of revolution oblate at the poles. It has 
likewise been proved that the same form is the only one 
capable of fulfilling the required conditions ; which completes 
the solution of the problem in so far as it regards a mass 
entirely fluid. 
The hypothesis of Newton, although most judicious, and 
best adapted for simplifying the investigation, is nevertheless 
quite arbitrary, and indeed does not seem to agree well with 
what is observed at the surface of the earth. Had the terres- 
trial globe been once entirely fluid, the heterogeneous matters 
of which it consists, must have taken an arrangement depend- 
ing on their densities ; the substances of greatest density 
would ultimately have settled at the centre, and those of least 
density at the surface ; and in proceeding from the centre to 
the surface, the changes of density would not have been very 
sudden, but slow and gradual and hardly perceptible for con- 
siderable depths. Admitting this hypothesis we should there- 
fore expect to find all the matter at the earth’s surface, or 
near it, little different in respect of density ; which is quite 
contrary to experience, since nothing can be more unequal 
and irregular than the density of the substances that compose 
the upper strata of the earth. Many other phenomena are 
also inconsistent with that uniform arrangement of parts which 
seems to be a necessary consequence of the supposition that 
the earth was originally fluid : of this description are, the 
great elevation of the continents above the surface of the sea; 
the depth of the immense channels which contain the waters 
dirtused over the surface of the globe ; and the irregular 
B 2 
