If, in pursuing this object, we employ our skill in research, not in
forming vain conjectures; and if _data_ are to be found, on which
Science may form just conclusions, we should not long remain in
ignorance with respect to the natural history of this earth, a subject
on which hitherto opinion only, and not evidence, has decided: For in no
subject, perhaps, is there naturally less defect of evidence, although
philosophers, led by prejudice, or misguided by false theory, may have
neglected to employ that light by which they should have seen the system
of this world.
But to proceed in pursuing a little farther our general or preparatory
ideas. A solid body of land could not have answered the purpose of a
habitable world; for, a soil is necessary to the growth of plants; and a
soil is nothing but the materials collected from the destruction of the
solid land. Therefore, the surface of this land, inhabited by man,
and covered with plants and animals, is made by nature to decay, in
dissolving from that hard and, compact state in which it is found below
the soil; and this soil is necessarily washed away, by the continual
circulation of the water, running from the summits of the mountains
towards the general receptacle of that fluid.
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