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Rome, the empress of the world, whose foundations were so deep, whose palaces were so sumptuous ?her hour is come, she is wiped from the face of the earth, and buried in everlasting oblivion. But not the cities only, and the works of men's hands, but the hills and mountains, and rocks of the earth, are melted as wax before the Sun, and their place is no where found; all have vanished and dropped: away, like the snow that once rested upon their summits'.'

According to Woodward, the deluge was occasioned by a momentary suspension of cohesion among the particles of mineral bodies; the whole mass of the globe was dissolved, and the soft paste became penetrated by shells.

Whiston supposed the earth, at the beginning, to be an uninhabitable comet, subject to such alternate extremes of heat and cold, that its matter, being sometimes liquefied, and sometimes frozen, was in the form of a chaos, or an abyss surrounded with utter darkness. This chaos was the atmosphere of the comet, composed of heterogeneous materials, having its centre occupied with a globular, hot, solid nucleus, of about two thousand leagues diameter. Such was the condition of the earth before the period described by Moses as the time of creation. The first day of the creation every material in this rude mass began to be arranged according to its specific gravity. The heavy fluids sank down, and left to the earthy, watery, and aërial substances, the superior regions.

1 Brande's Outlines of Geology, p. 4, 9.

Round the solid nucleus is placed the heavy fluid, which descended first, and formed the great abyss upon which the earth floats, as a cork upon quicksilver. The great abyss is formed of two concentric circles; the interior being the heavy fluid; and the superior, water; upon which last, the earth, or the crust we inhabit, is immediately formed. So that, according to this theorist, the globe is composed of a number of coats or shells, one within the other, of different materials, and of different densities. The air, the lightest substance of all, surrounds the outer coat; and the rays of the sun, making their way through the atmosphere, produced the light which Moses tells us first obeyed the divine command. The hills and valleys are formed by the mass of which they consist, pressing with greater or less weight upon the inner coat of the earth; those parts which are heaviest sinking lowest into the subjacent fluid, and making valleys, and those which are lightest rising higher and forming mountains.

Such Mr. Whiston supposed to be the state of the globe we inhabit before the Deluge. Owing to the superior heat, at that time, of the central parts, which have been ever since cooling, the earth was more fruitful and populous anterior to that event than since. The greater vigour of the genial principle was more friendly to animal and vegetable life. But as all the advantages of plenty and longevity which this circumstance produced, were productive only of moral evil, it pleased God to testify his displeasure against sin, by bringing a flood upon a guilty world. The flood was produced, as this theorist supposed, in the fol

lowing manner :—A comet, descending in the plane of the ecliptic of its perihelion, made a near approach to the earth. The approximation of so large a body raised such a strong tide, and produced such powerful commotion in the abyss concealed under the external crust, that the latter was broken, and the waters which had been before pent up, burst forth with great violence, and were the principal means of producing the deluge. In aid of this, he had recourse to another supposition, which was, that the comet, while it passed so near the earth as to produce these effects by the force of attraction, also involved our globe in its atmosphere and tail for a considerable time, and deposited vast quantities of vapours on its surface, which produced violent and long-continued rains; and, finally, that this vast body of waters was removed by a mighty wind, which dried up a large portion, and forced the rest into the abyss from which it had been drawn, leaving only enough to form the ocean and rivers which we now behold.

The great Leibnitz amused himself, as did also Descartes, by conceiving the world to be an extinguished sun or vitrified globe; upon which the vapours, condensing in proportion as it cooled, formed seas, which afterwards deposited calcareous strata.

Demaillet taught, that the earth was once wholly covered with water, which, by means of strong currents, raised in its bosom all those mountains which different countries bear on their surface; that this water has been ever since gradually diminishing, and will continue to diminish until it shall be quite ab+ sorbed; that our globe, being then set on fire, will

become a sun, and have various planets revolving in its vortex, till its igneous particles being consumed, it will be extinguished; that then it will roll through the immensity of space, without any regular motion, till it is again covered with watery particles, collected from other planets, when it will fix in the vortex of a new sun, and again go through the same course of motions and changes, being supplied with fresh inhabitants, resembling those by which it is tenanted at present; that the earth has probably been undergoing revolutions of this kind from all eternity, and will continue to go through a succession of them without end. This atheistical and absurd theory, if it deserve the name, not more hostile to revelation than to all sound philosophy, seems to have gained but few adherents, and but little celebrity.

After M. Maillet, his countryman, the Count de Buffon, formed a new theory of the earth, which has been much celebrated, and, notwithstanding its inconsistency with revelation, and the visionary absurdities which it involves, has gained many advocates and admirers.

According to the theory of Buffon, a comet falling into the body of the sun with great force, struck from its surface a large mass of liquid fire. The comet communicated to this fragment, thus driven off from the sun, a violent impulsive force, which it still retains. This fragment forms the globe we inhabit. It assumed its present figure when in a fluid state. As the heated mass gradually cooled, the vapours which surrounded it condensed, fell down in the form of water upon the surface, depositing at the same time

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a slimy substance, mixed with sulphur and salts, part of which was carried by the waters into the perpendicular fissures of the strata, and produced metals; the rest remaining on the surface, and giving rise to vegetable mould, with more or less of animal and vegetable particles. Thus the interior parts of the globe were originally composed of vitrified matter, and they continue so at present. Above these were placed those bodies which the fire had reduced to the smallest particles, as sands, which are only portions of glass, and above these pumice stones, and the dross of melted matter, which gave rise to different clays. The whole was covered with water to the depth of five or six hundred feet. This water deposited a stratum of mud, mixed with all those materials which are capable of being sublimed or exhaled by fire, and the air was formed of the most subtile vapours, which, from their levity, rose above the waters.

Such was the condition of the earth, as Buffon supposes, when the tides, the winds, and the heat of the sun, began to introduce changes on its surface. The diurnal motion of the earth, and that of the tides, elevated the waters in the equatorial regions, and necessarily transported thither great quantities of slime, clay, and sand; and by thus elevating these parts of the earth, sunk those under the poles about two leagues. The great inequalities of the globe took place when it assumed its form and consistence; swellings and blisters arising, as in the case of a block of glass or melted matter. In the act of cooling, it became furrowed, and variously irregular. The vitrescent matter of which the rock of the globe

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