have demonftrated the contrary: it is ftrange that when there is but one Right and one Wrong Opinion in this Point, that he should be fo unlucky as to hit upon the false one to maintain it.

CHA P. VII.

Of the Diffolution of the Primitive

H'

Earth.

ITHERTO I have refuted the Theorifts Motion, Pofition, and Figure, of the Primitive Earth. I am now to confider his method of Diffolving the Fabrick he has raised, and to Examin how and by what caufes, the firft Earth which had all the Beauty of Youth and Blooming Nature, Fresh and Fruitful, and not a Wrinkle or Scar on all its Body, came to be diffolved; how the Fabrick was broke, and the Frame of the whole torn in pieces, how it came to be a shattered and confufed heap of Bodies, as we now fee it, placed in no order one to another, nor with any correfpondency or regularity of parts, as the Theorist reprefents it to be.

He tells us that one would foon imagin that fuch a ftructure as that of the firft Earth

was,

was, would not be perpetual nor laft many thousands of years, if one confider the effect, the heat of the Sun would have upon it, and the Waters under it, drying and parching the one, and rarifying the other into vapours: For according to him, the courfe of the Sun was such at that time, that there was no diverfity or alteration of Seafons in the year, as there is now; by reafon of which alteration of Seasons, our Earth is kept in an equality of temper, the contrary Seafons ballancing one another; fo that what moisture the heat of the Summer fucks out of the Earth, is repaired again in Rains the next Winter, and what chaps are made in it are filled up, and the Earth is reduced to its former conftitution. But if we should imagin a continual Summer the Earth would proceed in drynefs ftill more and more, and the cracks would be wider and pierce deeper into the fubftance of it. The heat of the Sun therefore according to the Theorist, acting continually upon the Earth, would have reduced it in the fpace of fome hundreds of years to a confiderable degree of drynefs, in certain parts, and would alfo have much rarified and exhaled the water under it; fo that confidering the ftructure of that Globe, the exterior Cruft, and the Water under it, he thinks it may be fitly compared to an Æolipile or an hollow Sphere, with Water in it, which the heat of the fire rarifies and turns into Vapour

or Wind; the Sun here is the Fire, and the exterior Earth the fhell of the Æolipile, and the Abyss the water within it; as foon then as the heat of the Sun had reached the waters in the Abyss it began to rarify them, and raise them into Vapours, by which rarifaction they required more room, than they did before, and finding themselves pent in by the exterior earth they preffed with violence against that Arch to make it yield and give way to their dilatation: and by this means the Earth was broken, and the frame of it torn in pieces as by an Earthquake, and thofe great portions or fragments into which it was divided, fell down into the Abyss, fome in one posture and fome in another, and was the caufe of a general Deluge. I fhall now examin thefe caufes which the Theorift has given for the Diffolution of the Earth, and in this Chapter I will firft enquire whether the heat of the Sun can reach fo far as the great Abyss to rarify the waters thereof.

First then I have proved in the third Chapter of this examination, that there were Hills and Mountains in the primitive Earth as there are now in ours. I have alfo fhown that the Axis of the earth was then enclined the fame way to the Plane of the Ecliptick as it is at prefent; from thence it plainly follows that there was then, the fame variety of Seafons and Alterations of Heat and Cold in the primitive earth, that there are now in

Our

our earth, and by confequence, all the Arguments drawn from the great heat and strong action of the Sun upon the Antediluvian earth muft fall to the ground, there being then no greater heat of the Sun on the earth than there is at prefent.

But 2dly, there are places in the earth, as the Island of Barbadoes and fome other Islands near the Æquator, where there is little or no variety of Seafons or alteration of the Suns heat, but it continues to fhine very strongly upon them throughout the whole year, and yet in none of them is there any of thefe great Chaps and Cracks which the Theorist fays were made in the primitive earth by the ftrong action of the Sun; tho' it has fhon above thrice as long upon thefe Islands as it did upon the Antediluvian World.

3dly, It is certain that if we judge according to experience that the heat of the Sun doth not reach far into the Earth, and that its beams can go but a very little way into the Cruft; for in Vaults and Caves there is no fenfible alteration of heat in Summer and Winter, even tho' they have a communication with the open Air, And in the deep pits of the Royal Obfervatory at Paris it has been found by experience, that a Thermometer placed there, in the coldeft day of Winter does not fenfibly vary from what it was in the greatest heat in Summer; and they who work in Mines can tell how little difference they

I 3

they obferve of heat in the Summer, more than in the Winter, in places underground. But if the heat of the Sun could penetrate for any confiderable depth the Cruft of the Earth, it is plain, that when its heat is strongest and moft intense upon the Surface, it would alfo be moft intense within the Cruft; but the forementioned experiments do prove that within the bowels of the Earth there is no fenfible difference between the heat of the Sun when its action is strongeft, from what it is when its action is weakeft. Since then the heat of the Sun does not penetrate the Earth fo as to be fenfible even for the fmall space that we are able to dig thorough, how can we imagin it poffible that it fhould ever reach the Abyss through the whole exterior Cruft of the Earth fo as to be able to heat the water and raise it into Vapour?

But that I may bring this point to a Calculation as near as I can, I will suppose that the heat caused by the direct influence of the Sun upon any Surface is always (all other things being the fame) as the quantity of Rays of heat which falls upon that Surface; which I believe the Theorist will allow: Í will also fuppofe that fewer Rays of heat paffed thorough the folid Orb than if it had been compofed of feveral concentrical Surfaces placed at fome diftance from one another, every one of which tranfmitted only the one half of the Rays of heat which fell upon it: this I think may be alfo eafily allowed; for