seem to be as difficult as even its first formation. "These great masses of earth falling into the abyss, drew down with them vast quantities also of air; and by dashing against each other, and breaking into small parts by the repeated violence of the shock, they, at length, eft between them large cavities, filled with nothing but air. These cavities naturally offered a bed to receive the influent waters; and in proportion as they filled, the face of the earth became once more visible. The higher parts of its broken surface, now become the tops of the mountains, were the first that appeared; the plains soon after came forward, and at length the whole globe was delivered from the waters, except the places in the lowest situations; so that the ocean and the seas are still a part of the ancient abyss that have not had a place to return. Islands and rocks are fragments of the earth's former crust; kingdoms and continents are larger masses of its broken substance; and all inequalities that are to be found on the surface of the present earth, are owing to the accidental confusion into which both earth and waters were then thrown."

The next theorist was Woodward, who, in his Essay towards a Natural History of the Earth, which was only lesigned to precede a greater work, has endeavoured to give a more rational account of its appearances; and was, in fact, much better furnished for such an undertaking than any of his predecessors, being one of the most assiduous naturalists of his time. His little book, there fore, contains many important facts relative to natural history, although his system may be weak and groundless.

He begins by asserting that all terrene substances are disposed in beds of various natures, lying horizontally one over the other, somewhat like the coats of an onion; that they are replete with shells, and other productions of the sea; the shells being found in the deepest cavities, and on the tops of the highest mountains. From these observations, which are warranted by experience, he proceeds to observe, that these shells and extraneous fossils are not productions of the earth, but are all act ual remains of those animals which they are known to resemble; that all the beds of the earth lie under each other, in the order, of their specific gravity; and that they are disposed as if they had been left there by subsiding waters. All these assertions he affirms with much earnestness, although daily experience contradicts him in some of them; particularly we find layers of stone often over the lightest soils, and the softest earth under the hardest bodies. However, having taken it for granted that all the layers of the earth are found in the order of their specific gravity, the lightest at the top, and the heaviest next the centre, he consequently asserts, and it will not improbably follow, that all the substances of which the earth is composed were once in an actual state of dissolution. This universal dissolution he takes to have happened at the time of the flood. He supposes that at that time a body of water, which was then in the centre of the earth, uniting with that which was found on the surface, so far separated the terrene parts as to mix together in one fluid mass; the contents of which afterwards sinking according to their respective gravities, produced the present appearances of the earth. Being aware, however, of an objection that fossil substances are not found dissolved, he exempts them from this universal dissolution, and, for that purpose, endea vours to show that the parts of animals have a stronger cohesion than those of minerals; and that, while even the hardest rocks may be dissolved, bones and shells may still continue entire.

So much for Woodward; but of all the systems which were published respecting the earth's formation, that of Whiston was most applauded and most opposed. Nor need we wonder; for being supported with all the parade of deep calculation, it awed the ignorant, and produced the approbation of such as would be thought

otherwise, as it implied a knowledge of abstruse learning, to be even thought capable of comprehending what the writer aimed at. In fact, it is not easy to divest it of its mathematical garb; but those who have had leisure, have found the result of our philosopher's reasoning to be thus. He supposes the earth to have been originally a comet; and he considers the history of the creation, as given us in scripture, to have its commencement just when it was taken by the hand of the Creator, to be more regularly placed as a planet in our solar system. Before that time, he supposes it to have bee a globe without beauty or proportion; a world in dis orders, subject to all the vicissitudes which comets endure; some of which have been found, at different times, a thousand times hotter than melted iron; at others, a thousand times colder than ice. These alternations of heat and cold, continually melting and freezing the surface of the earth, he supposes to have produced, to a certain depth, a chaos entirely resembling that described by the poets, surrounding the solid contents of the earth, which still continued unchanged in the midst, making a great burning globe of more than two thousand leagues in diameter. This surrounding chaos, however, was far from being solid; he resembles it to a dense though fluid atmosphere, composed of substances mingled, agitated, and shocked against each other; and in this disorder he describes the earth to have been just at the eve of creation.

But upon its orbit being then changed, when it was more regularly wheeled round the sun, every thing took its proper place; every part of the surrounding fluid then fell into a situation, in proportion as it was light or heavy. The middle, or central part, which always remained unchanged, still continued so, retaining a part of that heat which it received in its primeval approaches towards the sun; which heat, he calculates, may continue for about six thousand years. Next to this fell the heavier parts of the chaotic atmosphere which serve to sustain the lighter; but as in descending they could not entirely be separated from many watery, parts with which they were intimately mixed, they drew down a part of these also with them; and these could not mount again after the surface of the earth was consolidated; they therefore surrounded the heavy first descending parts, in the same manner as these surround the central globe. Thus the entire body of the earth is composed most internally of a great burning globe; next which is placed a heavy terrene substance, that encompasses it; round which also is circumfused a body of water. Upon this body of waters the crust of earth on which we inhabit is placed; so that, according to him, the globe is composed of a number of coats, or shells, one within the other, all of different densities. The body of the earth being thus formed, the air, which is the lightest substance of all, surrounded its surface · and the beams of the sun darting through produced that light which, we are told, first obeyed the Creator's com mand.

The whole economy of the creation being thus adjusted, it only remained to account for the risings and depressions on the surface of the earth, with the other seeming irregularities of its present appearance. The hills and valleys are considered by him as formed by their pressing upon the internal fluid, which sustains the outward shell of earth, with greater or less weight; those parts of the earth which are heaviest sink into the subjacent fluid more deeply, and become valleys; those that are lightest rise higher upon the earth's surface, and are called mountains.

Such was the face of Nature before the deluge; the earth was then more fertile and populous than it is at present; the life of man and animals was extended to ten times its present duration; and all these advantages arose from the superior heat of the central globe, which ever since has been cooling. As its heat was then in its

full power, the genial principle was also much greater than at present; vegetation and animal increase were carried on with more vigour, and all Nature seemed teeming with the seeds of life. But these physical advantages were only productive of moral evil; the warmth which invigorated the body increased the passions and appetites of the mind; and as man became more power ful he grew less innocent. It was found necessary to punish his depravity; and all living creatures, except the fishes (who, living in a cold element, were not subject to a similitude of guilt), were overwhelmed by the deluge in universal destruction.

This deluge, which simple believers are willing to ascribe to a miracle, philosophers have long been desirous to account for by natural causes; they have proved that the earth could never supply from any reservoir towards its centre, nor the atmosphere by any discharge from above, such a quantity of water as would cover the sur face of the globe to a certain depth over the tops of our highest mountains. Where, therefore, was all this water to be found? Whiston has found enough, and more than a sufficiency, in the tail of a comet; for he seems to allot comets a very active part in the great operations of Nature.

He calculates, with great seeming precision, the year, the month, and the day of the week on which this comet (which has paid the earth some visits since, though at a kinder distance) involved our globe in its tail. The tail he supposed to be a vaporous fluid substance, exhaled from the body of the comet by the extreme heat, of the sun, and increasing in proportion as it approached that great luminary. It was in this that our globe was involved at the time of the deluge; and, as the earth stil acted by its natural attraction, it drew to itself all the watery vapours which were in the comet's tail; and the internal waters being also at the same time let loose, in a very short space the tops of the highest mountains were laid under the deep.

The punishment of the deluge being thus completed, and all the guilty destroyed, the earth, which had been broken by the eruption of the internal waters, was also enlarged by the same; so that upon the comet's recess there was found room sufficient in the internal abyss for the recess of the superfluous waters; whither they all retired, and left the earth uncovered, but in some respects changed, particularly in its figure, which, from being round, was now become oblate. In this universal wreck of Nature Noah survived, by a variety of happy causes, to re-people the earth, and to give birth to a race of men slow in believing ill-imagined theories of the earth. After so many theories of the earth, which had been published, applauded, answered, and forgotten, Mr. Buffon ventured to add one more to the number. This philosopher was, in every respect, better qualified than any of his predecessors for such an attempt, being furnished with more materials, having a brighter imagination to find new proofs, and a better style to clothe them in How ever, if one so ill qualified as I am may judge, this seems the weakest part of his admirable work; and I could wish that he had been content with giving us facts instead of systems; that, instead of being a reasoner, he had contented himself with being merely a historian.

He begins his system by making a distinction between the first part of it and the last; the one being founded only on conjecture; the other depending entirely upon actual observation. The latter part of his theory may, therefore, be true, though the former should be found erroneous.

"The planets," says he, "and the earth among the number, might have been formerly (he only offers this as conjecture) a part of the body of the sun, and adherent to its substance. In this situation, a comet fall ing in upon that great body might have given it such a shock, and so shaken its whole frame, that some of its particles might have been driven off like streaming

sparkles from red hot iron; and each of these streams of fire, small as they were in comparison of the sun, might have been large enough to have made an earth as great, nay, many times greater than ours So that in this manner the planets, together with the globe which we inhabit, might have been driven off from the body of the sun by an impulsive force: in this manner also they would continue to recede from it for ever, were they not drawn back by its superior power of attraction; and thus, by the combination of the two motions, they are wheeled round in circles

"Being in this manner detached at a distance from the body of the sun, the planets, from having been at first globes of li uid fire, gradually became cool. The earth also having been impelled obliquely forward, received a rotatory motion upon its axis at the very instant of its formation, and this motion being greatest at the equator, the parts there acting against the force of gravity, they must have swollen out,, and given the earth an oblate or flatted figure.

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"As to its internal substance, our globe having once belonged to the sun, it continues to be an uniform mass of melted matter, very probably vitrified in its primeval fusion. But its surface is very differently composed. Having been in the beginning heated to a degree equal to. if not greater than what comets are found to sustain; like them it had an atmosphere of vapours floating round it, and which cooling by degrees, condensed and subsided upon its surface. These vapours formed, according to their different densities, the earth, the water, and the air; the heavier parts falling first, and the lighter remaining still suspended."

Thus far our philosopher is, at least, as much a system maker as Whiston or Burnet; and, indeed, he fights his way with great perseverance and ingenuity through a thousand objections that naturally arise. Having, at last, got upon the earth, he supposes himself on firmer ground, and goes forward with greater security. Turning his attention to the present appearance of things upon this globe, he pronounces from the view that the whole earth was at first under water. This water he supposes to have been the lighter parts of its former evaporations, which, while the earthy particles sunk downwards by their natural gravity, floated on the surface, and covered it for a considerable space of time.

"The surface of the earth," says he, "must have been in the beginning much less solid than it is at present; and, consequently, the same causes which at this day produce but very slight changes, must then, upon so complying a substance, have had very considerable effects. We have no reason to doubt but that it was then covered with the waters of the sea; and that those waters were above the tops of our highest mountains, since, even in such elevated situations, we find shells and other marine productions in very great abundance. It appears also that the sea continued for a considerable time upon the face of the earth: for as these layers of shells are found so very frequent at such great depths, and in such prodigious quantities, it seems impossible for these to have supported their numbers all alive at one time; so that they must have been brought there by successive depositions. These shells are also found in the bodies of the hardest rocks, where they could not have been deposited, all at once, at the time of the deluge, or at any such instant revolution; since that would be to suppose, that all the rocks in which they are found were at that instant in a state of dissolution, which would be absurd to assert. The sea, therefore, deposited them wheresoever they are now to be found, and that by slow and successive degrees.

"It will appear, also, that the sea covered the whole earth, from the appearance of its layers, which, lying regularly one above the other, seem all to resemble the sediment formed at different times by the ocean. Hence, by the irregular force of its waves, and its currents driv

ing the bottom into sand-banks, mountains must have been gradually formed within this universal covering of waters; and these successively raising their heads above its surface must, in time, have formed the highest ridges of mountains upon land, together with continents, islands, and low grounds, all in their turns. This opinion will receive additional weight, by considering that in those parts of the earth where the power of the ocean is greatest, the inequalities on the surface of the earth are highest; the ocean's power is greatest at the equator, where its winds and tides are most constant; and, in fact, the mountains at the equator are found to be higher than in any other part of the world. The sea, therefore, has produced the principal changes in our earth; rivers, volcanoes, earthquakes, storms, and rain having made but slight alterations, and only such as have affected the globe to very inconsiderable depths."

This is but a very slight sketch of Mr. Buffon's Theory of the Earth—a theory which he has inuch more power fully supported than happily invented; and it would be neelless to take up the reader's time from the pursuit of truth in the discussion of plausibiliti. In fact, a thousand questions might be asked this most ingenious philosopher which he would not find it easy to answer; but such is the lot of humanity, that a single Goth can in one day destroy the fabric which the Caesars were employed an age in erecting. We might ask how mountains, which are composed of the most compact and ponderous substances, should be the first whose parts the sea began to remove? We might ask how fossilwood is found deeper even than shells? which argues, that trees grew upon the places he supposes once to have been covered with the ocean. But we hope this excellent man is better employed than to think of gratifying the petulance of Incredulity., by answering endless objections.

CHAP. V.

OF FOSSIL-SHELLS AND OTHER EXTRANEOUS FOSSILS.

We may affirm of Mr. Buffon that which has been said of the chymists of old; though he may have failed in attaining his principal aim-that of establishing a theory-yet he has brought together such a multitude of facts relative to the history of the earth and the na ture of its fossil productions, that Curiosity finds ample compensation, even while it feels the want of conviction. Before, therefore, I enter upon the description of those parts of the earth which seem more naturally to fall within the subject, it will not be improper to give a short history of those animal productions that are found in such quantities, either upon its surface or at different depths below it. They demand our curiosity; and indeed there is nothing in natural history that has afforded more scope for doubt, conjecture, and speculation. Whatever depths of the earth we examine, or at whatever distance within land we seek, we most commonly find a number of fossil-shells, which, being compared with others from the sea of known kinds, are found to be exactly of a similar shape and nature. They are found at the very bottom of quarries and mines, in the retired and inmost parts of the most firm and solid rocks, upon the tops of even the highest hills and mountains, as well as in the valleys and plains; and this not in one country alone, but in all places where there is any digging for marble, chalk, or any other terrestrial matters that are so compact as to fence off the external injuries of the air, and thus preserve these shells from decay. These marine substances, so commonly diffused and so generally to be met with, were for a long time considered by philosophers as productions, not of the sea, but of the earth. As we find that spars," said they, "always shoot into peculiar shapes, so these seeming

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snail, cockle, and muscle shells are only sportive forms that Nature assumes amongst others of its mineral va rieties; they have the shape of fish, indeed, but they have always been terrestrial substances."

With this plausible solution mankind were for a long time content; but upon closer inquiry they were obliged to alter their opinion. It was found that these shells had in every respect the property of animal, and not of mineral nature. They were found exactly of the samə weight with their fellow shells upon shore. They answered all the chymical trials in the same manner as sea-shells do. Their parts, when dissolved, had the same appearance to view, the same smell and taste. They had the same effects in medicine when inwardly administered; and, in a word, were so exactly conformable to marine bodies, that they had all the accidental concretions growing to them (such as pearls, corals, and smaller shells) which are found in shells just gathered on the shore. They were therefore, from these considerations, again given back to the sea; but the wonder was, how to account for their coming so far from their own natural element upon land.

As this naturally gave rise to many conjectures, it is not to be wondered that some among them have been very extraordinary. An Italian, quoted by Mr. Buffon, supposes them to have been deposited in the earth at the time of the Crusades, by the pilgrims who returned from Jerusalem; who, gathering them upon the seashore, in return carried them to their different places of habitation. But this conjecturer seems to have but a very inadequate idea of their numbers. At Touraine, in France, more than a hundred miles from the sea, there is a plain of about nine leagues long, and as many broad, from whence the peasants of the country supply themselves with marl for manuring their lands. They seldom dig deeper than twenty feet, and the whole plain is composed of the same materials, which are shells of various kinds, without the smallest portion of earth between them. Here, then, is a large space, in which are deposited millions of tons of shells, which pilgrims could not have collected, though their whole employment had been nothing else. England is furnished with its beds, which, though not quite so extensive, yet are equally wonderful. Near Reading, in Berkshire, for many succeeding generations, a continued body of oyster-shells as been found through the whole circumference of five or six acres of ground. The foundation of these shells is a hard rocky chalk; and above this chalk the oystershells lie in a bed of green sand, upon a level, as nigh as can possibly be judged, and about two feet thick. These shells are in their natural state; but they are found also petrified, and almost in equal abundance, in all the Alpine rocks, in the Pyrenees, on the hills of France, England, and Flanders. Even in all quarries from whence marble is dug, if the rocks be split perpendicularly downwards, petrified shells and other marine substances will be plainly discerned.

About a quarter of a mile from the river Medway, in the county of Kent, after the taking off the coping of a piece of ground there, the workmen came to a blue marble, which continued for three feet and a half or more deep, and then beneath appeared a hard floor or pavement, composed of petrified shells crowded closely toge ther. This layer was about an inch deep, and several yards over; and it could be walked upon as upon a beach. These stones of which it was composed (the describer supposes them to have always been stones) were either wreathed as snails, or bivalvular like cockles. The wreathed kinds were about the size of a hazle-nut, and were filled with a stony substance of the colour of marl; and they themselves, also, till they were washed, were of the same colour; but when cleaned, they appeared of the colour of bezoar, and of the same polish. After boiling in water they became whitish, and left a chalkiness upon the fingers.