It must be evident, that no motion of the sea, caused by this earth
revolving in the solar system, could bring about that end; for let us
suppose the axis of the earth to be changed from the present poles, and
placed in the equinoctial line, the consequence of this might, indeed,
be the formation of a continent of land about each new pole, from whence
the sea would run towards the new equator; but all the rest of the globe
would remain an ocean. Some new points might be discovered, and others,
which before appeared above the surface of the sea, would be sunk by
the rising of the water; but, on the whole, land could only be gained
substantially at the poles. Such a supposition, as this, if applied to
the present state of things, would be destitute of every support, as
being incapable of explaining what appears.
But even allowing that, by the changed axis of the earth, or any other
operation of the globe, as a planetary body revolving in the solar
system, great continents of land could have been erected from the place
of their formation, the bottom of the sea, and placed in a higher
elevation, compared with the surface of that water, yet such a continent
as this could not have continued stationary for many thousand years; nor
could a continent of this kind have presented to us, every where within
its body, masses of consolidated marble, and other mineral substances,
in a state as different as possible from that in which they were, when
originally collected together in the sea.
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