Theory of the Earth

IT is necessary for a living or inhabited world, that this should consist of land and water. It is also necessary, that the land should be solid and stable, resisting, with great power, the violent efforts of the ocean; and, at the same time, that this solid land should be resolved by the influence of the sun and atmosphere, so as to decay, and thus become a soil for vegetation. But these general intentions are perfectly fulfilled in the constitution of our earth, which has been now investigated. This great body being formed of different mixed masses, having various degrees of hardness and solubility, proper soil for plants is supplied from the gradual resolution of the solid parts; fertility in those soils arises from the mixture of different elementary substances; and stability is procured to that vegetable world, by the induration of certain bodies, those rocks and stones, which protect the softer masses of clay and soil.

IN this manner, also, will easily be explained those natural appearances which diversify the surface of the earth for the use of plants and animals, and those objects which beautify the face of nature for the contemplation of mankind. Such are, the distinctions of mountains and valleys, of lakes and river, of dry barren desarts and rich watered plains, of rocks which stand apparently unimpaired by the lapse of time, and sands with fluctuate with winds and tides. All these are the effects of steady causes; each of these has its proper purpose in the system of the earth; and in that system is contained another, which is that of living growing bodies, and of animated beings.

BUT, besides this, man, the intellectual being, has, in this subject of the mineral kingdom, the means of gratifying the desire of knowledge, a faculty by which he is distinguished from the animal, and by which he improves his mind in knowing causes. Man is not satisfied, like the brute, in seeing things which are; he seeks to know how things have been, and what they are to be. It is with pleasure that he observes

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