Theory of the Earth

better than descending to the mine, where all the examples are found on an enlarged scale.

LET us now consider what power would be required to force up, from the most unfathomable depth of the ocean, to the Andes or the Alps, a column for fluid metal and of stone. This power cannot be much less than that required to elevate the highest land upon the globe. Whether, therefore, we shall consider the general veins as having been filled by mineral steams, or by fluid minerals, an elevating power of immense force is still required, in order to form as well as fill those veins. But such a power acting under the consolidated masses at the bottom of the sea, is the only natural means for making those masses land.

IF such have been the operations that are necessary for the production of this land; and if these operations are natural to the globe of this earth, as being the effect of wisdom in its contrivance, we shall have reason to look for the actual manifestation of this truth in the phaenomena of nature, or those appearances which more immediately discover the actual cause in the perceived effect.

TO see the evidence of marble, a body that is solid, having been formed of loose materials collected at the bottom of the sea, is not always easy, although it may be made abundantly plain; and to be convinced that this calcareous stone, which calcines so easily in our fires, should have been brought into fusion by subterraneous heat, without suffering calcination, must require a chain of reasoning which ever one is not able to attain. But when fire bursts forth from the bottom of the sea, and when the land is heaved up and down, so as to demolish cities in an instant, and split asunder rocks and solid mountains, there is nobody but must see in this a power, which may be sufficient to accomplish every view of nature in erecting land, as it is situated in the place most advantageous for that purpose.

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