146 The Enquirer. 
ters of the ocean, have been cohsolidated 
by heat or sul,terranedus fire, and after- 
wards raised up by the expansive force of 
the same agent into the situations which 
they now occupy, whilst the unstratified 
bodies, such as  basaltes, w hinstone, 
and porpry'y> haying been brought into 
fusion by the same heat, have Been forci- 
bly injected among the strata; to which, 
therefore, granite is to be Gonsidered not 
of prior, as the chaotic mass men sup- 
pose, but of posterior origin. 
As-‘in the mineral regions “a loose or 
incoherent materials éf our land have 
been consolidated by heat, so upon the 
surface of the earth exposed to the fluid 
elements of air and water, there is a ne- 
cessary principle of dissolution and de- 
cay for that consolidated earth, which, 
from the mineral re egion, 1s exposed ts 
decay. The solid bedy being thus gradu- 
ally impaired, there are moving powers 
continually employed, by which the sum- 
mits of our land are continually de- 
graded, and the materials of this decay- 
ing surface travelled towards the coast. 
The summits of the mountains are every 
where urged through the valleys by the 
force of running w aters. The soil which 
is produced in the destruction of the so- 
lid earth is gradually travelled by the 
moving water; but, in the mean time, is 
‘constantly employ ed in supplying vegeta- 
‘tion with its necessary aid. ‘This fay ell- 
ed soil is at last deposited on the coast, 
where it forms most fertile countries : 
but the billows of the ocean agitate the 
loose materials upon the shore, and wear 
away the coast with the endless repeti- 
‘tions of this act of power, or this impart- 
‘ed force. Thus the continent-of our 
‘earth, sapped to its foundation, is carried 
away into the deep, and sunk again at the 
bottom of the sea, in wichit originated. 
Thus we see a circulation in the mat- 
‘ter of this globe, and a system of beauti- 
fu! economy in the works of nature, 
This earth, like the body of an animal, is 
wasted at the same time that it is im- 
‘paired. It has a state of augmentaticn, 
and another of diminution and decay. It 
is destroyed 1 in one part, but it is renew- 
éd in another; and the ’ operations by 
which it is ding constantly renewed, are 
as evident to the scientific eye as thos 
Jin ‘which it is necessarily -destroye 
Those various powers of destruction and 
_renovation carefully attended ‘to, serve to 
explain the common phenomena of na- 
ture; or rather, it is from those common 
phenomena or things which universally 
“appear, that causes are infer red, on phi- 
BD OC aA 
(Sept. 1 
Josophical principles, for those effects. 
A system is thus formed in generalising 
all those different effects, or in ascribing all 
those particular operations to agenere ral des 
sign or end, in which we may perceive ei- 
ther wisdom, so far as the. end and means 
are properly adapted to each other, or 
benevolence, so far as that system is con- 
trived for the benefit of beings whe are 
capable of suffering pain and pleasure, 
and of judging of good andevil. The ae- 
tual existence of final causes in nature. 
(whatever may be thought of their pri- 
ority to natural causes), strikes us as bya 
sensation, and is as obvious as any sub- 
ject of perception. 
The ‘powers employed in the~opera- 
tions of this globe are light and heat, cold 
and condensation, electricity, magnetism, 
and subterfaneous heat or mineral fire. 
By means of these pow ers, @ never-cea- 
sing revolution and intermixture of ele- 
ments 1S kept up; a constant transition 
from fusion to solidity, and from solidity 
again to fusion. It 1s impossible within 
any tolerable limits to enter farther into 
the Huttonian system of geology in this 
place.* It may just be observed, that 
the principal objections made to that 
theory, arise wholly from want of atten- 
tion to an essential part of it, namely, 
a modification cf the effects of heat by 
superincumbent pressure. It is also ob- 
served since Hutton wrote, by Spallan- 
zani, that the central fires animated by 
oxygen, must be modified by many other 
aeriform fluids. 
Now, to apply all these observations 
On the! tiories of geologists, the Neptu- 
nian, the Vuleanic, and the Huttonian, 
which calls the-aid Gs both these, inclin=. 
ing however more to the latter thin the 
former, to our present question, the ma- 
terials ‘that compose the Nucleus of the. 
earth, it appears on the whole, ~ ‘ 
First, that it is not an inert or dead 
mass, as is commonly supposed, but in a 
state of constant activity and fermenta- 
tion. It is a grand chemical laboratory, 
* For a fuller account of the Huttoniaa 
theory of the earth, the most satisfactory 
that has been proposed, as independent of 
every thing preternatural and miracelous, 
and going round and round with the’ wheel 
of nature, the reader must be referred to Dr. 
Fiutton’s own writings. But, before he 
dips into these he may, with great advantage, 
peruse the excellent 
theory by professor Playfair, who Rant 
his theory by additional reasoning, and 
even more to Hutton than Maclautin was 
to Sir Isaac Newtoa. 
producing 
fiieetiods of this | 
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