202 
EARTH. 
heavied particles would fubfide, and take pofleffion of 
the lowed place, from which they would not be dif- 
ledged by the lighted. But we need not defcend to par¬ 
ticulars: dratification mud be performed by a fhallow 
fpread and flow of water; but we cannot allow of drati¬ 
fication, nor of any diftinClion of flrata of different quali¬ 
ties under the bed of the waters of the ocean, without a 
miracle. 
“ To have recourfe to the agency of fire, in order to 
confolidate a dratum, is, in the firfl place, unnecejjhry , 
fince we daily fee induration going on without it. We 
fee various toffil bodies of various qualities and degrees 
of hardnefs formed and forming before our eyes, which 
are as wpll confolidated and cemented as if they had been 
fufed by fire. In forne places we fee caverns of various 
degrees of extent and magnitude, fome of which are al- 
mod, and others altogether, filled up by a fmall flow of 
water, depoliting particles of dony matter; and the bo¬ 
dies fo formed are afterwards confolidated, in the courfe 
of no very long time, to degrees of drength and indura¬ 
tion equal to any of our rocks and flrata. Mines 
recently worked are in many places fo quickly choaked 
up by the formation of various concretions, that we are 
often obliged to demolifh them, to prevent their flop-, 
ping up the paflage altogether. It is plain, therefore, 
that the matters depofited by water, either contain in 
themfelves the principle of induration, or receive it from 
the atmofphere ; which lad appears the mod likely ; and 
as the confolidation and prefent date of the rocks and 
drata in the earth were producible, by powers which we 
dill fee to exid in.nature without fufion, fo it is but rea- 
fonable to infer that they could not pollibly have been 
produced by it. A fire that could bring the bed of the 
ocean into fufion, mud have heated the waters to fuch a 
degree, that the whole race of animals in them mud have 
become extinCt. Fufion would produce an immenfe 
mafs of glafsor flag, which might crack indeed in cooling, 
but could never form regular horizontal drata of fuch 
diflimilar matters as thofe of which the flrata of the 
earth are compofed. How could coals fubfifl in the in- 
tenfe heat which vitrified their concomitant drata ? The 
fame may be faid of the argillaceous drata which, in all 
countries, are found in a foft date, immediately above and 
below very hard, drata of done ; for if fire had hardened 
the one, it mud have hardened the other alfo. Mod of 
the operations: and effe&s of fubterraneous fire, that we 
have any knowledge of, are outrageoufly violent and de- 
ftruCtive, and only produce diforder and ruin. If the 
bed of the ocean was really to be forced up by fubterra¬ 
neous fire to the height of our mountains, we might 
expect to find as great confufion and diforder, and marks 
of the ruins of the world, among: Dr. Hutton’s moun¬ 
tains as among Dr. Burnett’s ; but I have (hewn, that 
the drata of our real mountains are .as regular as any of 
the plains. In truth, I have not feen fuch regularity of 
the drata any where elfe as among the highland moun¬ 
tains of Lochahar, which are tiie highefl in Britain. Dr. 
Hutton lays great flrefs upon the phenomena of mineral 
veins ;—but, in truth, every appearance of mineral veins, 
and of their contents, point to water with a diftindt and 
legible index, as the chief agent in their formation. On 
the fuppofition of fuch a theory being true, all thefe 
veins fliould be wide above, and narrow below, which 
is not found true in experience, very many of them being 
exceeding flraightand narrow for many fathoms next the 
furfa.ee, which are very wide farther down ; and every 
fubdance found in thefe veins fliould be the hardefi in all 
the bowels of the earth, becaufe the force and violence 
of the fubterraneous fire would have a much freer paf- 
fage through thefe open fid'ures than through folid un¬ 
broken drata of feveral thoufand miles of thicknefs ; 
but this, in fadl, is not the cafe, the infide of many of our 
mineral veins being exceedingly foft and argillaceous. 
Again, upon the fuppofition of the contents of our mi¬ 
neral veins being formed by metallic dreams, forced up 
from below by fire, our mineral ores fliould be all pure 
and unmixed with earthy or dony matter, which is not 
fo ; and no metallic or mineral ore would be found out 
of the cavities of mineral veins ; but neither is this the 
cafe.” 
Our limits will not permit us to follow the author far¬ 
ther in his remarks, nor to give more than a general out¬ 
line of his theory. All his deferiptions are full and ac¬ 
curate ; but he falls into the defeCt of many geologids, 
that of fuppofing the whole furface of the earth to be 
like the fpots which he has obferved ; and he does not 
appear to have diffidently partaken of the dock of know¬ 
ledge daily increaling by continual obfervations in all 
countries. It feems alfo extraordinary that a work, 
which contains fo many ufeful and accurate obfervations, 
and fo many well-drawn conclufions againd theories 
which obtained credit in the world, fhould alfo prefent 
tons a theory which has no real fupport: the former 
imaginary theories of the earth reding only on fuperficial 
appearances, a competent knowledge of fome clafs of 
characteridic fails would fuflice to overturn them; and 
that knowledge Mr. Williams perfectly pofleflfes. To 
fubditute, however, a well-founded theory for thofe fan¬ 
ciful fy Items, required a very extenfive knowledge of 
principles and general fails; which do not appear to 
have been objects of this author’s particular attention. 
He has peremptorily refuted all thofe theories that fup. 
pofe only certain agencies, becaufe they require them, and 
which, either intentionally, or by confequence, contra¬ 
dicted the Mofaic account of the events that took place 
at the creation of our globe : from which difquifitions 
this general confequence refults, that nothing has yet been 
dated, which really weakens the foundations of our faith 
in that hiftory. Mr. Williams evidently fliews, that if 
our continents were not, both internally and externally, 
compofed as they are, they would be unfit for the fupport 
of the vegetable and animal creation ; which is a flrong 
fupport of final caufes : but when he undertakes to ex¬ 
plain how that admirable arrangement has been produced, 
and in what manner the operations agree with what lias 
been tranfmitted to us by the Mofaic revelation, which 
attempt required a full knowledge of the extenfive field 
of phenomena already explored, he falls fliortof his mark. 
Suppofing, as many others have done, and as appears 
to be undeniable, that the fuperficial parts of the earth 
were originally mixed with water into a fluid or chaotic 
date, Mr. W. endeavours to prove, that .all the regular 
drata were formed by the flow of the tides fucceflively 
fpreading out the depofited matters on a large horizontal 
plane ; and that the granites, and other dones, which he 
does not condder as firatified, fubfided when the water 
was in fome degree of red, as at the height of the tides, 
or where local obfiruClions occafioned dagnation. He 
thinks that, when the whole furface was in a fluid date, 
the tides would neceflarily rife to a prodigious Height, fe¬ 
veral miles higher than the tops of any of our moun¬ 
tains ; that the mountains of granite, which are uniform 
throughout, mud have fubfided in one tide; that the 
tides would be highefl, and have their rcjling places, on 
the two oppofite parts of the globe, which are now the 
two continents ; and that the direction of the tides, on 
different parts of the globe, would be fuch as we now 
find that of the flrata to be. Hj fuppofes the inte¬ 
rior body of the earth to have been formed in the fame 
manner, prior to the fuperficial parts; that, from various 
caufes, it was full of inequalities; that it would contain 
much water, both in the compodtion of the not yet con¬ 
folidated drata, and in feparate cavities; that when the 
fuperficial drata were laid between tides, and the ocean 
began to retreat into its prefent bed, the weight of thefe 
fuperincumbent flrata would force out the water impri- 
foned belqw them ; that thefe drata themfelves, as yet 
foft and flexible, would, in many cafes, be bent and 
broken ; that cracks would be occafioned alfo by their 
contraction in drying, which cracks would be increafed 
by 
